1791

:Luigi Galvani develops a theory of 'animal electricity' later called, 'Galvanic Electricity'

1794

:Robert Barker opens the first 'Panorama', a prototype of future cinemas

1801

:Thomas Young formulates the wave theory of light

1802

:Thomas Wedgewood produces silhouettes by use of siver nitrate but is unable to fix the images

1807

:Dr. William Hyde Wollaston invents the 'Camera Lucida' which projects the virtual image of an object onto a screen.

1808

:Humfrey Davy produces the first electric arc light

1824

:Peter Mark Roget discovers ability of retina to retain image for 1/20 - 1/5 of a second and invents the 'Thaumatrope'

1827

:Charles Wheatstone experiments with acoustics and designs a microphone

1830

Michael Faraday passes electricity through vacuum tube

1832

Joseph Plateau invents a toy called the Phantascope which shows a series of staged drawings which are displayed on a spinning disc creating an illusion of motion is created. This is considered the first motion picture device

Simon Von Stampfer invents the stroboscope

:Charles Wheatstone invents a non-photographic 'stereoscopic viewing device'

1834

William George Horner patents the 'Daedelum'

Pierre Desvignes experiments with the Daedelum and produces the 'Zoetrope' consisting of a drum with equally spaced vertical slits (peepholes) down the side and a series of images on strip of paper showing a figure or object in graduating stages of motion - the beginning of the cinema

1843

:Alexander Bain patents the 'Pantelegraph' which is an electrical method for transmitting images over a distance.

1847

:Frederick Bakewell improves the Pantelegraph by using revolving drums covered with tin-foil for transmitting and receiving recorded pictures

1859

Thomas Du Mont patents the 'camera zootropica' which reproduces the phases of movement in 12 successive images

1861

:Oliver Wendell Holmes invents the 'stereoscope viewer'

1873

Joseph May and Willoughby Smith discover photoconductivity which transforms images into electrical signals.

1876

:Alexander Graham Bell invents the "telephone"

1862

:The pantelegraph is invented by Abbe Giovanna Caselli which transmits a still image over wire

1873

:Scientists May and Smith experiment with the photoconductivity of selenium and light and transforming images into electronic signals

1875

Ayrton and Perry of England experiment with electric picture systems

Thomas Alva Edison invents the wax stencil mimeograph duplicator

Intelligible speech transmitted by Alexander Graham Bell using a magnetic microphone

1876

George R Carey of Boston, USA invented a "selenium camera" which was a device that would allow people to "see by electricity." Other similar devices at the time were called telectroscopes.

Eugen Goldstein experiments with cathode rays and used the term to describe the light emitted when an electric current was forced through a vacuum tube

1878

Sheldon Bidwell experiments with telephotography

Paul Nipkow patents the "electric telescope."

1879

Thomas Edison demonstrates the carbon filament light bulb

1880

1880: Denis Redmond builds the télescopie électrique (Electric Telescope) and transmits an image electrically

Alexander Bell and Sumner Tainter experiment with the photophone seeking to use this device for image sending

Maurice Leblanc pioneers the principles for color television

Denis Redmond publishes the first book about television called 'La Telescopie Electrique' (The Electric Telescope).

1881

Sheldon Bidwell experiments with telephotography inventing the 'Scanning Phototelegraph'

1884

Paul Nipkow invents the "electric telescope", a scanning disk

Thomas Edison discovers the 'Edison Effect' the basis for the electron tube

1893

One of the earliest examples of remote control was developed by Nikola Tesla

1894

Charles Francis Jenkins patents the phantascope, one of the first practical motion picture projection machines

1895

Louis and Auguste Lumière patent the cinematograph capable of projecting moving pictures and on December 28 show the first motion pictures at the Grand Cafe on the Boulevard Des Capucines

1896

Louis and Auguste Lumière patent the cinematograph capable of projecting moving pictures and on December 28 show the first motion pictures at the Grand Cafe on the Boulevard Des Capucines

April 23: Thomas Edison shows the first motion pictures in the USA in Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York

September 2: Guglielmo Marconi granted the worlds first radio patent

1897

Heinrich Rudolph Hertz produces radio waves

K.F. Braun invents the cathode-ray tube

Thomas Edison continues experiments with motion pictures

1899

Thomas Edison and William Kennedy Laurie Dickson patent the Kinetoscope

Julius Elster and Hans Friedrich Geitel successfully transmit static or luminous imagery

1900

Congress of Electricity held at the 1900 World's Fair in Paris

Constantin Perskyi made the first known use of the word "television."

Scientists were looking at two methods - Mechanical television and Electronic television

1906

Lee de Forest invented the "Audion" vacuum tube with the ablity to amplify signals

Boris Rosing combines Paul Nipkow's disk and a cathode ray tube and builds the first working mechanical TV system.

Reginald Fessenden invents wireless telephony, a means for radio waves to carry signals a significant distance.

1907

1907: Campbell Swinton and Boris Rosing suggest using cathode ray tubes to transmit images via Electronic television

Charles Jenkins and Scotsman John Baird experiment with the mechanical television model

Philo Farnsworth experiment with the the electronic television model.

1909

1909 Nobel Prize awarded to Karl Ferdinand Braun and Guglielmo Marconi for the development of radio

1912

The Radio Act of 1912 limits broadcasting on radio stations to the 360m wavelength, which jams signals.

1922

Vladimir Kosma Zworykin patents his iconscope television transmission tube leading the way for further advancement in the television

1924

1924 - 1925: American Charles Jenkins and John Baird from Scotland, each demonstrate the mechanical transmissions of images over wire circuits. Photo Left: Jenkin's Radiovisor Model 100 circa 1931, sold as a kit. Baird becomes the first person to transmit moving silhouette images using a mechanical system based on Nipkow's disk. Vladimir Zworykin patents a color television system.

1924
l "Broadcast Listeners" Year Book forecasts 'The Wireless Musical Cinema' within two to three years.

1925

Vladimir Kosma Zworykin patents the first television color tube

October 30: The first moving image was transmitted (the famous grainy image of a ventriloquists dummy's head)

1927

April 9: Bell Laboratories and the Department of Commerce held the 1st long-distance transmission of a live picture and voice simultaneously.

Philo Farnsworth patents the Image Dissector, the first complete electronic television system and transmits the first all-electronic television image

John Logie Baird set up the Baird Television Development Company Ltd making the first television programmes for the BBC

1928

Television is introduced in the United States

The Federal Radio Commission issues the first television license (W3XK) to Charles Jenkins

John Logie Baird beams a television image from England to the United States

The first television set is sold. The Daven television cost $75.

RCA begins work on large-screen television.

1929

Television is introduced in the United Kingdom and Germany

John Logie Baird opens the first TV studio

CBS was founded by William S. Paley

1930

1930: Charles Jenkins broadcasts the first TV commercial

RCA demonstrate large screen television in New York

Ulysses A Sanabria gives a Cinema-television demonstration in Chicago

July 28: First UK public demonstration of large screen television given by John Logie Baird at the London Coliseum

1931

January 4 John Logie Baird demonstrates ‘zone television’, showing full-length figures and a cricket lesson by Herbert Strudwick.

April 24: Lee De Forest files a US patent for a method of recording pictures, film or events

Television is introduced in France and the USSR

By the end of 1931 there are nearly 40,000 television sets in the United States

1932

June: John Logie Baird transmits pictures of the Derby horse race at Epsom to a large-screen television display at the Metropole Cinema in London

November 8: John Logie Baird introduces a programme which is televised from Broadcasting House, London to the Arena Theatre, Copenhagen, Denmark (600 miles away)

1934

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was established by the Communications Act of 1934

1936

The  firstexperimental" coaxial cable lines were laid by AT&T between New York and Philadelphia

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) debuts the world's first television service with three hours of programming a day.

August: Television at the Berlin Olympics. Television broadcasts from the Berlin Olympic Games are seen by 150,000 people in public television rooms in Berlin

1938

February 4:  First UK public demonstration of large-screen colour television at London’s Dominion theatre by John Logie Baird and is transmitted from the Baird studio at Crystal Palace in South London

1939

January: Direct projection television with a 15ft x 12ft screen is installed at the 1,190-seat Marble Arch Pavilion by Baird Company.

Television was demonstrated by RCA at the New York World's Fair and the San Francisco Golden Gate International Exposition

Fritz Fischer patents the Eidophor

Baird Television Ltd goes into liquidation and is re-formed as Cinema-Television but without John Logie Baird on the board.

Television is introduced in Japan and Italy

1940

1940: Peter Goldmark invents a 343 lines of resolution color television.

1941

John Logie Baird, now working on his own,  demonstrates a 600 line HDTV colour system for television

1943

1943: Vladimir Zworykin develops a camera tube called the Orthicon

1944

January 15:  Patent is granted for the Eidophor television projection system.

1945

June 14: John Logie Baird dies of pneumonia

1946

Peter Goldmark, working for CBS, demonstrated his mechanical color television system to the FCC - the first to introduce a broadcasting color television system

1948

1948: Cable television is introduced in Pennsylvania

Louis W. Parker patents a low-cost television receiver

One million homes in the United States have television sets

1949

August: In a document entitled 'Television and the Cinema', prepared for the Beveridge Committee on the future of broadcasting, the BBC states that 'the place of television is in the home'

1950

The FCC approves the first color television standard which is soon replaced by a second in 1953

Vladimir Zworykin develops the Vidicon

Phonevision, the first pay-per-view television service, becomes available

1951

Color television introduced in the U.S.

Philips experiments and produces projection television

1952

Television is introduced in Canada

1956

Robert Adler invents Zenith Space Commander which is the first practical remote control

1962

AT&T launches Telstar, the first satellite to carry TV broadcasts and television broadcasts are relayed around the World.

1964

Color television introduced in the U.S.

1969

July 20: TV transmission from the moon watched by 600 million people

1972

50% of  home TVs are color television sets.

1973

Giant screen projection television is first marketed.

1976

Sony introduce Betamax, the first home video cassette recorder.

1980

CNN, the first all-news network, is launched by Ted Turner

1981

NHK demonstrate HDTV with 1,125 lines of resolution.

The Supreme Court rules to allow television cameras in the courtroom.

1982

Dolby surround sound for home televisionsets is introduced.

1986

Super VHS is introduced

1988

98% of U.S. households have at least one television set.

The first commercial Direct broadcast satellite DBS service, Sky Television plc (now BSkyB), was launched in the UK

1992

There are 900 million television sets in use around the world

201 million television sets are in the United States.

2006

Television signals in both analog and digital formats

The US switch-off of all analogue terrestrial TV broadcasts is scheduled to begin NO LATER THAN February 17, 2009

The UK switch-off of all analogue terrestrial TV broadcasts is scheduled to begin in 2008. The last regions will be switched off in 2012

A UK Digital Terrestrial replacement, called Freeview, enables analogue television sets to receive prrogrammes