The History of Television
In today’s world, with the exception of people electing not to view television for religious or personal reasons, there are probably very few households that do not contain at least one television set. On average, with most being used at least one or more hours of any given day, it makes one wonder how much if anything the average viewer knows about the history of television.
Since most products were invented or pioneered by one person alone, it is interesting to note this was not the case for television. Several German scientists began experimenting with ways to send pictures over wires in the late 1800s but it was not until 1927 that the first picture tube as we know it today was granted a patent. The first image to be transmitted was ().
Transmissions were black and white until 1953 when color was introduced on an RCA system. Once mankind became attached to television viewing, changing channels by hand was the only way until 1956 when the first remote appeared, ironically named ‘Lazy Bones’ by its producer, Zenith Electronics. Aside from the remote, probably the most valuable innovation in television history is closed captioning for the hearing impaired in 1972.