Reinventing Television

Illustration of a person hammering a rock over black text on a yellow background

The television has its origins as early as the 1800s, with rudimentary mechanical devices transmitting images to a screen. The first electronic television was created in 1927 by Philo Taylor Farnsworth, and as the number of television sets began to grow, the first TV stations soon appeared. 

Television sets would not become commercially available until the late 1930s, but from then on popularity began to soar. By 1952 around 20 million Americans owned a TV set. After the remote control was invented in 1955, and color TV became ubiquitous in the 1960s, an already popular device became even more so. By 1993, 98% of Americans owned at least one TV.