History of radio § Broadcasting

                                        

                                           Radio and television

Starting in 1894, Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi began developing a wireless communication using the then newly discovered phenomenon of radio waves, showing by 1901 that they could be transmitted across the Atlantic Ocean. This was the start of wireless telegraphy by radio. Voice and music were demonstrated in 1900 and 1906, but had little early success. World War accelerated the development of radio for military communication. After the war, commercial radio AM broadcasting  began in the 1920s and became an important mass medium for entertainment and news. World War II again accelerated development of radio for the wartime purposes of aircraft and land communication, radio navigation and radar. Development of stereo FM broadcasting of radio took place from the 1930s on-wards in the United States and displaced AM as the dominant commercial standard by the 1960s, and by the 1970s in the United Kingdom.

On 25 March 1925, John Logie Baird was able to demonstrate the transmission of moving pictures at the London department store Selfridges. Baird's device relied upon the Nipkow disk and thus became known as the mechanical television. It formed the basis of experimental broadcasts done by the British Broadcasting Corporation beginning 30 September 1929.However, for most of the twentieth century televisions depended upon the cathode ray tube invented by Karl Braun. The first version of such a television to show promise was produced by Philo Farnsworth and demonstrated to his family on 7 September 1927. After World War II, the experiments in television that had been interrupted were resumed, and it also became an important home entertainment broadcast medium.