On this day in 1926, John Logie Baird, a Scottish inventor, gave the first public demonstration of a true television system in London.

How It Worked. The picture was a small 30-line vertically-scanned red and black image. Mechanical televisions based on Baird's systems were the mainstay of international television for the next few years. They started a revolution in communication and entertainment.

Pictorial Transmission Device? Baird called his pictorial-transmission invention a televisor, which means "to see from a distance." Television was the latest term for a concept that had been discussed since the mid-19th century.

Baird's Bright Idea. Baird became obsessed with the idea of a machine that could transmit images of events ~ as they occurred ~ across the world. Many solutions had been suggested, but Baird found the work of German inventor Paul Nipkow particularly intriguing.

Inspiration and Perspiration. Paul Nipkow, a German scientist who patented his ideas for a complete television system in 1884, used a rotating disk with holes in it to scan images. But Nipkow's televisor never created anything more than the shadowy pictures.

Baird's Televisor. Baird's televisor also used mechanical rotating disks to scan moving images into electronic impulses. The information was then transmitted via cable to a screen. There it appeared as a low-resolution pattern of light and dark.

But Is It Entertainment? Baird's first TV program showed the heads of two ventriloquist dummies, which he operated in front of the camera apparatus out of view of the audience.

Experimenting. Various inventors worked to develop this idea, but Baird was the first to achieve images clear enough to see.

Live! From London! In 1928, Baird made the first overseas broadcast from London to New York over phone lines. That same year he demonstrated the first color television.

Now at a Home Near You? The first home television receiver was demonstrated in Schenectady, New York, in January of 1928. By that May, a station began broadcasting to local homes that had been given the General Electric-built machines.

All Electronic Television. By 1932, the Radio Corporation of America demonstrated an all-electronic television using a cathode-ray tube in the receiver and the iconoscope camera tube developed by Russian-born physicist Vladimir Zworykin. These two inventions greatly improved picture quality.

Hi D? The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) launched regular high-definition public broadcasts in London in 1936. In delivering the broadcasts, Baird's television system was in competition with one promoted by Marconi Electric and Musical Industries.