It took a bewildering number of technical and business developments to put television in our living rooms, and a Scot named John Logie Baird contributed as many of them as anyone else even if his better-funded competitors had the final say. Rube Goldberg would have been proud of many of the contraptions Logie patched together. The first spiral encoding wheels he used were cut from the lids of hat boxes. When competing with EMI to develop cameras for live broadcasts Logie's system involved scanning the subject with a "flying spot" of bright light in a dark studio. Because the process actually was very good at converting motion pictures to television, Logie developed a camera that shot 16mm film, immediately processed it in the camera, and scanned it with his flying spot system less than a minute later while the film was still wet. (The cameras leaked on the studio floor.) He never made much money, his wife said the only vacation the couple ever got was a sea voyage to Australia in 1938 as guests of the Autralian broadcasting industry.
The first vehicle in the space shuttle fleet was originally to be named Constitution in honor of the forthcoming bicentennial of the US constitution. A write-in campaign by Star Trek fans convinced the White House to change the name of OV-101 to Enterprise, perhaps appropriate as neither vehicle was equipped with propulsion systems. On this day Enterprise was released from its pylons on the top of a 747 and glided to a safe landing.
Today also marks Cardinal Richelieu's rise to power, the capture of Manila, the official start of the US atomic bomb program, and the noisy disruption of Sunday morning in Berlin.
1624 - After negotiating peace between King Louis XIII and Maria de Medici (the king's mother), Cardinal Richelieu was named to the Council of Ministers. On this day he was made its president, first Chief Minister of France, and through alliances with foreign powers, intrigues against the nobles, and creation of his own bureaucracy exercised absolute control over France until his death in 1642.
1898 - Admiral Dewey and US ground forces captured Manila, two days after the end of the Spanish American War. Since he had cut the submarine telegraph cable a month before he was unaware that the battle was unnecessary.
1942 - Colonel James Marshall of the US Army Corps of Engineers created a new district organization with the intentionally-misleading name "Manhattan Engineer District." It was actually located in Los Alamos, New Mexico and developed the atomic bomb after the abrasive Colonel Leslie Groves was put in charge.
1961 - Early Sunday morning, construction brigades of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) tore up streets, erected barricades of paving stones, strung barbed wire, and stationed tanks at strategic locations. Subway and rail service between East and West Berlin were terminated, residents of East Berlin were prohibited from crossing - including 60,000 employed there.
1977 - Space shuttle prototype Enterprise took off from Edwards Airforce Base attached to the top of a Boeing 747, was released at altitude (20,000 feet) for its first free flight test, landing successfully on lake bed Runway 17 5 minutes and 21 seconds later.
Three Glorious Days, Republic of the Congo - A three-day holiday commemorating the 1963 revolution of the same duration led by students and the trade unions against French colonial rule, independence was gained on the 15th. Three Glorious Days is also the name of the national anthem.
1888
- John Logie Baird, British inventor - Born at Helensburgh, Scotland,
a coastal town northwest of Glasgow. By age twelve he had created a telephone
exchange for the neighborhood but had to dismantle it when his low-hanging
wires caused an automobile accident. Used the wire to install electric
lights in the family house. Built glider in 1901, flew it from the roof
but it broke up after several seconds, left him unwilling to fly for life.
Attended Larchfield Academy, entered Royal Technical College at Glasgow
in 1906, graduating from the electrical engineering program in 1914, enrolled
at Glasgow University for a bachelor of science degree but the war interfered.
Army rejected him as "unfit for army service" several times. Living at
Hastings on the south English coast in 1923 Baird started experimenting
with mechanical television and a system for transmitting radio waves and
detectig the reflections, securing a 1926 patent for what we now know
as radar. Early tests broadcast only outlines of the subject over a few
feet, first broadcast shaded images in 1925 with increased sensitivity
in his photocells. Patented system of using array of transparent rods
for transferring images, a forerunner of modern fiber optics. In May of
1927 sent image by phone line 435 miles from London to Glasgow, sent first
transatlantic television image from London to New York 9 February 1928,
demonstrated first color images in London in July. Demonstrated first
"big screen" television in 1930 with 3 x 6-foot array of lightbulbs, broadcast
the 1931 English Derby over an experimental BBC transmitter. With funding
from the BBC developed commercial system used by about 3,000 viewers between
1929 and 1933, but lost out to EMI's all-electronic system. In competition
with Marconi-EMI to set "high definition" standard Baird's limited funding
was critical, the company never recovered from a 1936 fire at its offices
in he Crystal Palace. Developed television displays for theaters and did
classified work for British military on radar imaging and aerial reconnaissance.
Retired after a 1941 heart attack, he wrote his autobiography, and was
working on high-definition stereoscopic television. His last project was
televising the Victory Parade in several London theaters. He died at Bexhill-on-Sea,
Sussex, England on 14 June 1946.
Television is an invention that permits you to be entertained in your
living room by people you wouldn't have in your home.
- David Frost
Seeing a murder on television can help work off one's antagonisms. And
if you haven't any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some.
- Alfred Hitchcock
Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each
other.
- Ann Landers
Time has convinced me of one thing: Television is for appearing on -
not for looking at.
- Noel Coward
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