On this day in 1936, the U.S. Baseball Hall of Fame elected its first members in Cooperstown, New York: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Matthewson and Walter Johnson.
Today, with approximately 350,000 visitors per year, the Hall of
Fame continues to be the hub of all things baseball. It has elected
278 individuals, in all, including 225 players, 17 managers, 8
umpires and 28 executives and pioneers.
On January 26, 1926, John Logie Baird (1888 – 1946) a Scottish
inventor, gave the first public demonstration of a true television
system in London (above), which launched a revolution in the
communication and entertainment fields.
Baird’s invention, a pictorial-transmission machine he called
a “televisor,” used mechanical rotating disks to scan moving
images into electronic impulses. This information was then
transmitted by cable to a screen where it showed up as a low-
resolution pattern of light and dark.
Baird’s first television program showed the heads of two
ventriloquist dummies, which he operated in front of the
camera apparatus out of view of the audience (below).
The original television model, invented by the Scottish
television pioneer John Logie Baird.
This image is the first recorded picture taken from a TV
screen.
First Emmy Awards Marker outside the Hollywood Athletic
Club.
The first Emmy Awards ceremony, which was televised, was held
on January 25, 1949 at the Hollywood Athletic Club (below). The a
wards recognize excellence in television, which in the 1940s was
a novel medium and only 4,000 homes in Los Angeles had televisions.
The awards were hosted by Walter O’Keefe who substituted for
Rudy Vallée when he had to leave town at the last minute.
Most Outstanding Television Personality: Twenty-year-old Shirley Dinsdale and her puppet sidekick “Judy Splinters” (below) for
‘The Judy Splinters Show.’
On January 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy became the first
U.S. president to hold a live televised news conference.
From a podium in the State Department auditorium, Kennedy read
a prepared statement regarding the famine in the Congo, the
release of two American aviators from Russian custody and
impending negotiations for an atomic test ban treaty.
He then opened the floor for questions from reporters, answering
queries on a variety of topics including relations with Cuba,
voting rights and food aid to impoverished Americans.
In 1935, in partnership with the American Can Company, the
Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company delivered 2,000 cans of
Krueger’s Finest Beer and Krueger’s Cream Ale to faithful
Krueger drinkers in Richmond, Virginia. Ninety-one percent
of the drinkers approved of the canned beer, driving Krueger
to give the green light to further production.
