User:Mervyn/Timeline of communications and media

Timeline of communications and media is a temporary personal working list of notable events -- a check list to see if wikipedia has an article. Needs much disambiguation.

1700-1799

1714 first typewriter patented by Henry Mill in England
1719 Reaumur proposes using wood to make paper
1720 South Sea Bubble bursts
1724 Thomas Longman founded
1727 The Gentleman's Magazine, first modern magazine
1741 first magazine in America is published - American Magazine
1742 Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine prints first American magazine ads
1755 Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language
1757 Whatman invents wove paper
1762 John Murray (publisher) founded
1764 Fournier develops point system to measure type sizes
1765 earliest known children's pop-up book
1768 first edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica
1768 first Letters of Junius in England
1768 first voyage of Cook's Endeavour
1770 gum eraser
1770 Eyre & Spottiswoode founded
1772 first English patent for coloured ink
1774 paper whitener kyle was born in jamaica
1783 Glasgow Herald founded
1784 first edition of The Times
1786 Playfair's Commercial & Political Atlas
1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man
1791 establishment of the Observer
1792 Chappe's mechanical semaphore in France
1792 New York Stock Exchange established
1792 postal money orders in Britain
1794 Metric system in France
1798 Thomas Malthus's first Essay on Population
1798 Alois Senefelder invents lithography
1799 paper-making machine invented in France by Robert

1800-1849

1801 Jacquard invents punch-card control for looms
1803 Sydney Gazette & NSW Advertiser - first newspaper in Australia
1804 Bonnier founded
1806 carbon paper
1807 camera lucida
1807 John Wiley opens shop
1807 A&C Black founded
1811 Luddite riots in Nottingham
1812 Churchill Livingstone founded
1813 can opener invented
1814 The Times printed by steam-powered rotary press
1815 patent for lined notepaper
1817 Berzelius isolates selenium
1817 Ricardo's On the Principles of Political Economy & Taxation
1817 Sir David Brewster patents the kaleidoscope ¥
1817 Say's Catechism of Political Economy
1818 Butterworth founded
1820 first manufactured calculating machine, de Colmar's Arithometer
1822 het Algemeen Handelsblad founded
1822 Daguerre and Bouton stage the first diorama in Paris
1823 Charles Babbage builds section of calculating machine
1825 First railway opens, from Stockton to Darlington
1827 Niépce makes first true photograph
1827 first microphone constructed by Wheatstone
1827 Samuel F. B. Morse founds Journal of Commerce
1829 first US patent for a typewriter
1829 Wheatstone uses punched paper tape to store data
1830 number of ads in British newspapers rises to 877,972 pa
1830 Stamp Tax abolished in Australia
1832 Havas news agency established
1833 experimental 1 kilometre-long electric telegraph in Germany
1834 Babbage conceives Analytical Engine
1834 Routledge founded
1835 Bertelsmann founded as a religious printer
1835 Agence Havas news and advertising agency founded
1835 Libel Act in England establishes truth allowed as defence in defamation for first time in UK
1836 General Register Office in the UK
1837 Wheatstone and Cooke patent electric telegraph
1837 Samuel F. B. Morse exhibits electric telegraph in US
1837 world's largest newspaper, New York Sun, has 30 000 circulation
1837 Pitman publishes book on shorthand
1838 Jacobi introduces the electrotype, permitting extended print runs for illustrated publications ¥
1838 London to Birmingham railway opens ¥
1838 Daguerre-Niépce method begins photographic revolution
1839 William Fox Talbot in England produces photographs from negatives
1839 electrotyping (duplicating of printing plates) invented by Jacobi
1839 electricity used to run printing press
1839 Henri Becquerel notes electrochemical effects of light
1840 first postage stamps sold in Britain
1841 Volney Palmer, first media broker
1841 first type-composing machine used in London
1842 Illustrated London News appears
1842 Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) appears
1842 Galveston Daily News founded
1843 first Christmas card commissioned by Henry Cole from artist John Calcott Horsley
1843 Economist founded
1843 Macmillan founded
1843 photographic enlarger
1843 Ada Lovelace publishes Notes about Computing
1843 first public telegraph line, from Paddington to Slough
1843 News of the World mass-market newspaper begins publication ¥
1844 Pearson media group founded as UK civil engineering contractor
1844 Toronto Globe founded
1844 de Nieuwe Rotterdamse Courant founded
1844 Samuel F. B. Morse's telegraph connects Washington and Baltimore
1844 First photographically illustrated book published
1845 Straits Times launched
1845 cable laid across English Channel
1845 typewriter ribbon
1846 double cylinder rotary press produces 8,000 sheets per hour
1846 Melbourne Argus appears
1846 Moreton Bay (Brisbane) Courier
1847 Levi Strauss invents denim jeans
1847 Bakewell develops "copying telegraph"
1847 Uusi Suomi founded
1848 Mill's Principles of Political Economy
1848 Marx's Das Kapital
1848 first WH Smith railway bookstall
1848 Cassell founded
1848 first issue of Chicago Tribune
1848 first US postage stamp
1849 photographic slide
1849 first French postage stamp
1849 Howe patents safety-pin

1850-1899

1850 first machine-made paper bag
1850 Mannheim designs logarithmic slide rule
1850 number of magazines published in US reaches 685
1851 Great Exhibition in London
1851 first edition of New York Times
1851 Archer invents wet-plate photography
1851 patent for Singer sewing machine
1851 first Canadian postage stamp
1851 Reuters established
1851 Collodion (wet plate) photographic process introduced ¥
1851 First pillar box appears, invented by Trollope, the novelist
1853 envelopes made by paper folding machine
1853 establishment of Compagnie Générale des Eaux, precursor of Vivendi
1854 telegraph used in Crimean War
1854 Wheatstone invents Playfair cipher
1854 Boole's Laws of Thought
1854 first Australian telegraph line (Melbourne to Williamstown)
1854 Carte-de-visite process simplifies photography
1855 compulsory prepayment of postage in US
1855 Hughes' printing telegraph
1855 pre-payment of letters made compulsory in US
1855 Maury's The Physical Geography of the Sea
1855 registered letters enter service in US
1855 Thomas Cook starts continental tours
1856 Poitevan develops photolithography
1856 blotting paper replaces sand boxes
1856 machine-folding of newspapers
1856 Symes buy The Age
1858 failure of first transatlantic telegraph service
1858 eraser fitted to end of pencil
1858 first aerial photograph
1858 Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney linked by telegraph
1859 development of wide-angle camera lens
1859 cable across Bass Strait
1859 Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species published in London ¥
1859 John Stuart Mill's On Liberty
1859 Great Moral History of Port Curtis, Australia's first comic
1860 Sholes builds functional typewriter
1860 Schibsted launches Aftenposten
1861 - First transatlantic telephone cable laid
1861 end of Pony Express in US
1861 first colour photograph taken by James Clerk Maxwell
1862 drawing is sent over a wire by Caselli
1862 first US national paper money
1863First underground railway in London
1863 uniform postage rates in US
1863 rollerskates invented
1865 Atlantic cable links US and Europe
1865 Nokia established as pulp and paper mill
1866 Holt Rinehart Winston founded
1867 Cahalan invents stock ticker
1868 writing machine first called a 'Type-Writer'
1869 establishment of N W Ayer, first US ad agency
1869 UK private telegraph companies nationalised
1869 transcontinental railway completed in US
1869 Suez Canal opened
1870 stock ticker used by Wall Street
1870 first British postcard devised by Anthony Trollope
1871 Bates establishes first ad agency offering "creative services"
1871 Hoe perfects continuous roll press
1871 first newspaper printing of pictures (using halftone)
1872 simultaneous transmission from both ends of a telegraph wire
1872 US$1 million budget for advertising Lydia Pinkham's Pink Pills
1872 Overland Telegraph Line links Melbourne to Darwin, with connection to Europe
1873 D'Alzon founds Bonne Presse and Pelerin
1873 US 'Comstock Act' criminalises use of mail for distributing any 'obscene, lewd or lascivious book or other publication of indecent character'
1873 illustrated daily newspaper appears in New York
1873 Maxwell publishes theory of radio waves
1873 Dewey develops Dewey Decimal System for Amherst College Library
1873 Remington starts manufacturing Sholes' typewriters
1873 typewriters get the QWERTY pseudo-scientific keyboard
1873 Parmalee invents automatic fire sprinklers
1873 Mith and May note photoconductivity of selenium
1874 Universal Postal Union (UPU) formed
1874 Yomiuri Shimbun founded
1875 mimeograph invented by Edison
1875 UK Trade Marks Registration Act establishes Trade Marks Registry
1875 John Wiley & Son incorporated
1876 Bell invents telephone
1876 Corriere della Sera founded
1876 Chugai bukka shinpo (later Nikkei Shimbun) founded
1877 Washington Post founded
1877 Charles Cros and Thomas Edison invent phonograph
1877 first commercial telephone is introduced
1878 Edweard Muybridge photographs horse in motion
1878 Scripps newspaper group founded
1878 cathode ray tube invented by Crookes
1878 microphone invented
1878 telephone directories are issued
1878 full page newspaper ads
1878 dry-plate photography
1879 Benday process assists newspaper illustration
1879 first telephone service in Australia connects Melbourne and South Melbourne offices of Robinson Brothers
1879 Sydney Daily Telegraph appears
1879 Asahi Shimbun founded
1879 Dahl's 'sulfate' method for practical manufacture of paper from wood pulp
1879 Frege proposes notational system for mechanical reasoning
1880 first photos in newspapers using halftones
1880 Edison and Swan invent electric light
1880 first parcel post
1880 US-owned telephone companies in UK merge to form United Telephone Company (later National Telephone Co)
1880 first Australian telephone exchange opened in Melbourne
1880 telecommunications company Bell Canada established
1881 Electric lighting installed in the Savoy Theatre, London
1882 Married Womens' Property Act in UK
1882 first wirephotos
1882 first national US ad (by P&G for Ivory soap)
1883 First photogravure printed in Britain
1883 Halftone printing plates introduced
1883 Stillwell invents brown paper bag
1883 Curtis founds Ladies' Home Journal
1884 Vort Arbeid newspaper founded
1884 early version of television technology - Nipkow scanning disk
1884 long distance telephone calls
1884 electric tabulator
1884 Waterman's fountain pen
1885 First practical motor car with an internal combustion engine built by Karl Benz ¥
1885 AT&T formed
1885 cylinder-based dictating machines
1885 coated photo printing paper made by Eastman
1886 Mergenthaler's linotype machine
1886 Sears Roebuck, forerunner of Amazon.com, starts mail-order business
1886 first Berne Copyright Convention
1886 Coca-Cola syrup invented
1886 Hollerith forms Tabulating Machine Company
1887 est. 5,400 cash registers in US (increases to 16,900 in 1890)
1887 Celluloid photographic film introduced
1887 US Interstate Commerce Act
1887 Berliner patents phonographic disk
1887 Comptometer multi-function adding machine is manufactured
1887 Bodley Head founded
1887 dynamite invented (NO! Alfred Nobel invented dynamite in 1863!)
1887 Hutchinson founded
1887 Winfrey buys Spalding Guardian
1888 Kodak box camera
1888 Hertz proves existence of radio waves
1888 coin-operated public telephone
1888 J M Dent founded
1888 Burroughs patents adding machine
1889 Hollerith's punch card machine used in US census
1889 automatic telephone exchange
1890 AB Dick markets mimeograph
1890 New York Phonograph Co opens first purpose-built recording studio
1890 Launch of the Daily Graphic, the first illustrated newspaper
1890 zipper
1890 rotogravure press
1890 Constable founded
1891 telephoto lens is attached to the camera
1891 first telephone link between London & Paris
1891 International Copyright Convention
1892 Edison and Dickson invent peep-show Kinetoscope
1892 4-colour rotary press
1892 portable typewriters
1892 Herman Ridder buys New York Staats-Zeitung
1893 World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus landing in America
1893 Coca-Cola trademark registered
1894 Marconi invents wireless telegraphy
1895 Lumière brothers invent Cinématograph
1895 William Friese-Greene invents phototypesetting
1895 Kellogg's Corn Flakes
1895 first Times Atlas of the World
1896 first edition of Daily Mail
1896 Henry Ford builds Quadricycle
1896 Underwood model permits typists to see what they are typing
1896 X-ray photography invented
1896 first US cinema opens
1897 Braun invents cathode-ray tube
1897 General Electric creates corporate publicity department
1897 Curtis launches Saturday Evening Post
1898 photographs taken by artificial light
1898 New York State passes law against misleading advertising
1898 Duckworth founded
1898 Kauppalehti daily founded
1898 James M Cox buys Dayton Evening News
1899 loudspeaker is invented
1899 magnetic sound recording
1899 American Marconi Company (forerunner of RCA)
1899 Burroughs Adding Machine Company
1899 Thorsten Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class
1899 Kraus launches Die Fackel

1900-1919

1900 Kodak Brownie
1900 est. 1.4 million telephones, 8,000 registered automobiles and 24 million electric light bulbs in US
1900 'television' coined in France
1900 price of 'chemical' wood pulp reaches US$36 per tonne, down from US$344 per tonne in 1866
1900 'His Master's Voice' (HMV) registered as trademark in Britain
1901 first electric typewriter, the Blickensderfer
1901 first UK cinema opens
1901 Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams
1901 Gillette introduces double-edged safety razor
1901 Marconi sends radio signal across Atlantic
1901 establishment of Australian Commonwealth; PostMaster-General's 16,000 staff account for 90% of federal bureaucracy
1901 22,310 telephone subscribers in Australia (79% in capital cities)
1902 US Navy installs radio telephones aboard ships
1902 photoelectric scanning used for image transfer
1902 invention of the Teddy Bear
1902 national syndication of comic strips in US begins when Hearst licenses his strips to other newspapers
1902 Trans-Pacific telephone cable connects Canada and Australia
1903 London Daily Mirror illustrates only with photographs
1903 Ford Motor Co incorporated
1904 telephone answering machine
1904 photograph transmitted by wire in Germany
1904 comic book
1904 death of Joseph Pulitzer
1904 double-sided phonograph disc
1905 invention of the Yellow Pages
1905 juke box
1905 Australian Wireless Telegraphy Act regulates local airwaves
1906 offset press
1906 first classical music radio broadcast
1906 de Forest invents three-element vacuum tube
1906 Dunwoody and Pickard build crystal-&-cat's-whisker radio
1906 animated cartoon film
1906 Fessenden invents wireless telephony
1906 experimental sound-on-film motion picture
1906 experimental radio transmissions at Queenscliff, Victoria and Devonport, Tasmania by the Marconi Company
1907 Bell & Howell develop a film projection system
1907 Lumiere brothers invent still colour photography process
1907 electric washing machine - The Thor
1907 United Press International (UPI) founded
1907 Melbourne to Sydney telephone trunk line
1908 Ford's Model T
1908 electric iron and toaster patented
1908 Mills & Boon founded
1908 Sidgwick & Jackson founded
1909 radio distress signal saves 1,700 lives after ships collide
1909 first broadcast talk (on votes for women)
1909 pianos reach maximum market penetration in UK households at one per ten people
1910 Amalgamated Wireless Australia (AWA) formed
1910 first live opera broadcast
1910 Harrap founded
1911 UK and Australian Copyright Acts provide protection for author's lifetime plus 50 years
1911 American Tobacco Company controls 92% of world's tobacco business, just a bit more than Microsoft's share of the browser market in early 2001
1911 Photoplay magazine launched - first movie fan magazine and "genesis of celebrity culture"
1911 nationalisation of National Telephone Co in UK
1912 sinking of RMS Titanic
1912 Mises' The Theory of Money & Credit
1912 US passes law to control radio stations
1912 first neon sign
1912 first airmail
1912 first automatic telephone exchange in Australia
1913 portable phonograph
1913 est one-third of British households own a phonograph
1913 first newspaper crossword puzzle
1914 radio message is sent to an airplane
1914 35mm still camera
1914 American Audit Bureau of Circulations formed
1914 ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers) founded
1914 Allen & Unwin founded
1914 first transcontinental telephone call in US
1914 Melbourne to Adelaide telephone trunk
1915 wireless radio service connects US and Japan
1915 radio-telephone carries speech across Atlantic
1915 Birth of a Nation
1915 electric loudspeaker
1916 United Newspapers formed in UK
1916 Sarnoff envisages radio as "a household utility"
1916 cameras get optical rangefinders
1916 radios get tuners
1916 US postal inspectors solve last known stagecoach robbery
1917 photocomposition begins
1917 Wente's condenser microphone
1917 Capek uses term "robot" in Opilek
1918 first regular airmail service: Washington to New York
1918 Beaverbrook founds Sunday Express
1918 first direct radio message from UK to Australia received at AWA's Wahroonga facility
1919 rotary dial telephones
1919 Eccles & Jordan's flip-flop circuit
1919 shortwave radio
1919 est. 1 million miles flown on scheduled routes (with 7,500 passengers)

1920-1939

1920 Pearson-controlled Westminister Press buys UK provincial newspaper chains
1920 merger of Agence Havas and Société Générale des Annonces advertising agency
1920 Heinemann founded
1920 first broadcasting stations opened
1920 KDKA in Pittsburgh broadcasts first scheduled radio programs
1920 first US transcontinental airmail
1921 Wittgenstein's Tractatus
1921 de Volkskrant founded
1921 Western Union begins wirephoto service
1921 soap powder for washing machines
1921 first hamburger chain, White Castle
1921 Thorsten Veblen's The Engineers & the Price System
1922 UK BBC formed as commercial radio broadcaster
1922 UFA film company founded in Berlin
1922 Technicolour introduces two-colour process for movies
1922 average US weekly movie attendance is 40 million (1.56 per household)
1922 first film with optical sound track produced by UFA
1922 first radio advertisement in USA, US$100 for ten minutes
1922 first 3-D movie
1922 Dwiggins coins term 'graphic design'
1922 Nanook of the North, first documentary
1922 first portable radio in US
1923 Sydney to Brisbane telephone trunk line
1923 Disneys found film studio in Hollywood
1923 electric guitar
1923 first commercial radio broadcasting in Australia
1923 Book-of-the-Month Club founded
1923 Phaidon founded
1923 Zworykin's electronic iconoscope camera and kinescope display
1923 A C Nielsen founded
1923 Young & Rubicam founded
1923 16mm nonflammable film
1923 Kodak introduces home movie equipment
1923 Time magazine
1923 Edward Bernays writes Crystallizing Public Opinion
1924 Marlboro is launched, targeted at women with the line 'Mild as May'
1924 invention of spiral binding for notebooks
1924 invention of Vegemite
1924 The Eveready Hour is the first sponsored radio program in US
1924 IBM incorporated
1924 Music Corporation of America (MCA) founded
1924 2.5 million radio sets in the US
1925 Leica 35 mm camera
1925 commercial picture facsimile radio service across the US
1925 electric phonograph
1925 wide-screen film
1925 Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
1925 AT&T establishes Bell Labs
1925 Random House founded
1925 Faber & Gwyer founded
1925 Marinho takes control of O Globo newspaper
1926 General Electric forms Radio Corporation of America (RCA)
1926 Belo founded
1926 UK government nationalises BBC
1926 Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK) - Japan Broadcasting Corporation founded
1926 first radio jingle: Wheaties
1926 commercial picture facsimile radio service across Atlantic
1926 Baird demonstrates electro-mechanical TV system
1926 first 16mm movie is shot in the US
1926 NBC radio network
1926 Bell Labs transmit film by television
1926 Aniline printing developed
1926 Ridder buys Journal of Commerce
1927 NBC begins two radio networks
1927 Jolson's The Jazz Singer is the first popular "talkie"
1927 Lang's Metropolis
1927 Movietone offers sound newsreels
1927 US Radio Act declares public ownership of the airwaves and establishes federal Radio Commission
1927 Technicolor
1927 JVC formed
1927 Remington Rand formed
1927 Gollancz founded
1928 US broadcasters agree to ban radio ads during 'family hour'
1928 Baird demonstrates colour TV on electro-mechanical system
1928 first Mickey Mouse cartoon
1928 teletype machine
1928 Baird beams TV image from UK to US
1928 first scheduled television broadcasts in US
1928 IBM adopts 80-column punched card
1928 United Independent Broadcasters restructured as Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)
1929 Associated Newspapers formed in Australia through merger of S Bennett Ltd with Denison's Sun Newspapers
1929 Cisneros founded
1929 Decca records founded in UK
1929 Nyquist Theorem
1929 telegraph ticker sends 500 characters per minute
1929 ship passengers can phone relatives ashore
1929 brokers watch stock prices on an automated electric board
1929 Sydney-Melbourne picturegram service launched
1929 car radio invented
1929 first magnetic sound recording on plastic tape
1929 first television studio built in London
1929 Variety reports that 'Wall Street Lays An Egg'
1929 Bell Labs transmits stills in colour by mechanical scanning
1929 Zworykin's cathode-ray tube "kinescope" receiver, 60 scan lines
1929 Baird's tv transmissions using BBC radio towers during off hours
1929 est. 57 million miles flown on scheduled routes (with 434,00 passengers)
1930 Sidney & Cecil Bernstein open Granada Cinema
1930 Experimental 30-line TV transmissions in the UK
1930 photo flashbulbs replace flash powder
1930 first use of TV for advertising via closed circuit in UK and US
1930 Lowell Thomas comperes first regular US network newscast
1930 Bush's differential analyzer
1930 AT&T trials picture telephone
1930 Melbourne to Perth telephone trunk line
1930 London to Melbourne telephone service
1930 Curtis buys Philadelphia Inquirer
1931 commercial teletype service
1931 electronic TV broadcasts in Los Angeles and Moscow
1931 exposure meters on sale to photographers
1931 Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften
1931 EMI formed in UK
1931 incorporation of Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Radiodiffusion (CLR)
1931 Crossley system for rating size of radio program audiences
1932 General Electric divests RCA
1932 first colour photo in a British newspaper, The Times
1932 Times uses Morrison's new Times Roman typeface
1932 Kodak introduces 8 mm film for home movies
1932 stereophonic sound in a motion picture, Gance's Napoleon
1932 Zoom lens invented
1932 NBC and CBS allow prices to be mentioned in radio commercials
1932 International Telecommunications Union
1932 Berle & Means' The Modern Corporation & Private Property
1933 first Mars bar
1933 Edwin Armstrong invents FM
1933 singing telegrams
1933 Homer Capehart sells Simplex record changer to Wurlitzer Co as basis for jukebox
1933 Dreft, first household detergent
1933 stereo phonograph records
1933 Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) established
1934 US Communications Act of 1934 creates federal Communications Commission
1934 drive-in movie theater opens in New Jersey
1934 Associated Press starts wirephoto service
1934 first overseas radiophoto published in Australian newspapers
1934 first mobile television truck captures Nazi rally
1934 3-colour Technicolor used in live action film
1934 half US homes have radios
1934 Muzak founded
1935 audio tape recorders on sale in Germany
1935 IBM markets electric typewriter
1935 IBM markets 601 tabulator
1935 first Kit Kat in UK
1935 first Penguin paperback
1935 Michael Joseph founded
1935 all-electronic VHF television
1935 Eastman-Kodak develops Kodachrome colour film
1936 Berlin Olympics are televised closed circuit
1936 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)
1936 coaxial cable connects New York to Philadelphia
1936 Turing describes a general purpose computer
1936 Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
1936 Life launched
1936 Packers buy Sydney Daily Telegraph from Associated Newspapers
1936 Keynes's General Theory of Employment, Interest & Money
1937 Turing's On Computable Numbers introduces Turing machine
1937 NBC sends mobile TV truck onto New York streets
1937 Hindenburg crash broadcast coast to coast in US
1937 Greater Union Theatres (GU) group in Australia
1937 Photocopier invented by Carlson
1937 Snow White is first feature-length cartoon
1938 Baird demonstrates live TV in colour
1938 Biro brothers invent ballpoint pen
1938 CBS World News Roundup ushers in modern newscasting
1938 radio surpasses magazines as a source of ad revenue in US
1938 U Penn plays first publicly televised game of US football
1938 War of the Worlds broadcast frightens chattering classes
1938 Hulton Press Library founded as archive for Picture Post magazine
1939 Cox buys The Atlanta Journal
1939 Atanasoff-Berry Computer, first electronic digital computer
1939 300,000 jukeboxes in US
1939 New York World's Fair shows television to public
1939 first regular TV ads
1939 radio in 75% of German households
1939 Hewlett-Packard

1940 - 1959

1940 Walt Disney's Fantasia introduces stereo sound
1940 CBS demonstrates color television in New York
1940 80% of US homes have radio
1940 Wilson's To the Finland Station
1941 Citizen Kane
1941 stereo installed in Moscow movie theater
1941 FCC sets US TV standards
1941 first colour TV commercial, for Bulova watches
1941 microwave transmission
1941 Zuse's Z3 computer
1942 Academic Press founded
1942 Lamarr & Antheil patent for secure "spread spectrum" communications
1942 Kodacolour process produces the colour print
1944 Harvard's Mark I, first digital computer
1944 IBM offers typewriter with proportional spacing
1944 first high-fidelity recordings
1944 von Neumann & Morgenstern's Theory of Games & Economic Behavior
1945 Clarke describes geosynchronous communication satellites
1945 Bush's 'Memex' article
1945 est. 10,000 television sets in US
1946 6,500 television receivers sold in US
1946 Lanham Act in US
1946 term 'bit' used for first time by John Tukey
1946 first network soap opera
1946 jukeboxes go into mass production
1946 ENIAC makes 5,000 additions in one second
1946 automobile radio telephones connect to US phone network
1946 Love Me Sailor censorship trial in Australia
1946 Axel Springer founds Nordwestdeutsche Hefte and Hör Zu magazine
1946 Rupert Hart-Davis founded
1946 over 200 new mass-oriented magazines launched in US
1946 IBM markets 603 electronic tabulator
1946 Universal Pictures merges with International Pictures to become Universal International
1947 invention of transistor
1947 zoom lens used in US baseball world series TV
1947 holography
1947 International Telecommunication Union (ITU) becomes UN agency
1948 Claude Shannon's A Mathematical Theory of Communication
1948 Wiener's Cybernetics
1948 invention of LP record and Polaroid camera
1948 News of the World sells 8 million copies in UK
1948 Holtzbrinck founded
1948 Brost buys licence for Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ)
1948 establishment of Australian Broadcasting Control Board
1948 US weekly cinema population peaks at 90 million
1948 IBM markets 604 tabulator
1949 birth of US network TV
1949 disposable syringe invented in Australia
1949 RCA introduces 45 rpm record
1949 regional use of cable television in US
1949 first commercial computer
1949 magnetic core computer memory
1949 Australian CSIRAC computer perform its first controlled program
1949 The Lone Ranger and Hopalong Cassidy initiate tv Western genre
1949 Weidenfeld & Nicolson founded
1949 Thames & Hudson founded
1950 Turing's Computing Machinery & Intelligence
1950 Remington-Rand acquires Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corp
1950 NBC launches Today show and The Adventures of Superman
1950 Phonevision, first pay-per-view service
1950 AC Nielsen's Audimeters start to track TV viewing
1950 changeable typewriter typefaces in use
1950 first credit card - Diners Club
1950 first Bertelsmann book club formed
1950 Victor Civita forms Editora Abril
1950 Paul Hamlyn founded
1950 R. C. Hoiles founds Freedom Newspapers

1951-1975

1951 1.5 million television sets in US
1951 launch of commercial radio in Japan
1951 Cinerama
1951 Wang Laboratories founded
1951 still cameras get built-in flash units
1951 coaxial cable reaches coast to coast in the US
1951 André Deutsch founded
1951 Peter Owen founded
1951 Treaty of Paris establishes European Coal and Steel Community
1952 Bing Crosby's company tests video recording
1952 Nixdorf Computer founded
1952 US government sues IBM for monopolizing punched-card machine industry
1952 Sony produces first transistor radios
1952 UNIVAC I projects the winner of the presidential election on CBS
1952 Zenith proposes pay-TV system using punched cards
1952 est. 22m television sets in US homes
1953 first issue of TV Guide
1953 Axel Springer buys Die Welt
1953 launch of commercial TV in Japan
1953 Fairfax grabs Associated Newspapers
1953 National Cash Register enters computer market through purchase of Computer Research Corporation
1954 Village Roadshow media group founded
1954 Television Act establishes UK Independent Television Authority (ITA)
1954 FORTRAN created by John Backus
1954 IBM markets 650 computer, using drum storage
1954 USSR launches Sputnik
1954 regular colour TV broadcasts begin in the US
1954 TV ad revenue exceeds radio revenue in US for first time
1954 Robert Borkenstein patents breathalyser
1955 NBC president David Sarnoff says "Television will never be a medium of entertainment"
1955 Disneyland opened
1955 EMI buys Capitol Records in US
1955 launch of L'Espresso
1955 Remington-Rand & Sperry Gyroscope merge as Sperry-Rand
1955 rebranding sees start of Marlboro Man campaign
1955 first fluoride toothpaste, Crest
1955 music recorded on tape in stereo
1955 US record sales reach US$277m pa
1956 television broadcasting in Australia
1956 Granada TV starts broadcasting in UK
1956 first transatlantic telephone cable
1956 television in 71% of US households
1956 first hard disk drive at IBM
1956 IBM settles punch card dispute through DOJ consent decree
1956 Ampex builds practical videotape recorder
1956 Bell Labs tests picture phone
1956 first transatlantic telephone calls by cable
1956 term 'artificial intelligence' devised
1956 first use of "Elvis has left the building"
1956 Burroughs Adding Machine Company enters computer market through purchase of Electrodata
1957 Treaty of Rome establishes European Economic Community
1957 Control Data Corporation formed
1957 Digital Equipment (DEC) formed
1957 National Opinion Polls (NOP) founded in UK
1957 Soviet Union's Sputnik sends signals from space
1957 first Japanese car sold in US
1957 FORTRAN becomes first high-level computer language
1957 UNIVAC II marketed
1957 Sony TR63 is first pocket transistor radio
1957 surgical operation is televised
1957 Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders
1957 Chomsky's Syntactic Structures
1957 first book to be entirely phototypeset is offset printed
1958 US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency founded
1958 Minsky founds AI Lab at MIT
1958 Warner Bros records formed
1958 UNIMATE is first industrial robot
1958 colour videotape recording
1958 laser invented at Bell Labs
1958 integrated circuit
1958 cable carries FM radio stations
1958 Galbraith's The Affluent Society
1958 Bank of America launches first US credit card
1958 AT&T markets first modems
1959 local ads go on cable TV in the US
1959 Xerox's first automatic paper copier
1959 "A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play"
1959 French SECAM and German PAL television systems
1959 first packaged program sold by Computer Science Corporation
1959 Advance buys Conde Nast magazine group
1959 Axel Springer buys majority of Ullstein AG
1959 Grundy Productions founded in Australia
1959 Tisch brothers buy Loews cinema chain from MGM
1959 US record sales reach US$600m pa