It was on this date in 1927 that then-Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover made the first television broadcast by a political leader. I suspect that this was from W3XK in Wheaton, Maryland, though the blurb in the morning paper did not mention this.
Of course, by that time, Baird in the UK had already made a transatlantic TV broadcast and also one from shore to ship. In 1929, Baird broadcast the first-ever TV interview, the victim being a Miss Peggy O'Neil from Buffalo, New York, an actress and singer. (Richard, you've just gotten the ammunition to win that next trivia contest at The White Hart -- or is Gavagan's Bar you frequent?)
In 1936, the Don Lee System began broadcasting high definition TV from W6XAO (later, KTSL) in LA. THAT HDTV was a shift from the East Coast standard of 48 lines to a staggering 240 lines. A month later, NBC went to 343 lines in its New York broadcasts. The Federal Communications Commission did not begin to really regulate TV until 1941 when it issued its first set of engineering standards for the new medium. During WW2, there were 5,000 TV sets in all of the US, and most Wartime broadcasts were training flicks for air-raid wardens and the like.
Germany broadcast the 1936 Olympics from both Berlin and Hamburg.The BBC began scheduled broadcasting from Alexandra Palace in London on 2 NOV 1936, giving BBC One the premier place in broadcast history. Broadcasting was suspended on 3 SEP 1939 upon the outbreak of WWII. They had been running a Mickey Mouse cartoon and simply went off the air in the middle of the film. When they went back on the air on 7 JUN 1945, they picked up at the precise moment where they had cut off six years earlier. The Brits had 15,000 TV sets in 1939, three times as many as were in the US, with this difference: almost all US sets were in homes, while almost all UK sets were in pubs or restaurants. Thus, TV had a deeper impact in the UK in those Prewar years than it did in the US.
Marc msmall@xxxxxxxxxxxx Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir! --- Rollei List - Post to rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx - Subscribe at rollei_list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'subscribe' in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org - Unsubscribe at rollei_list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org - Online, searchable archives are available at //www.freelists.org/archives/rollei_list
