On the evening of 2 November 1920, the Pittsburgh station KDKA, run by Westinghouse and engineer Frank Conrad, began regular broadcasting with the results of the presidential election, in which Warren Harding defeated James Cox, about 1,000 listeners hearing the news before it was in newspapers. Earlier experiments, such as Reginald Fessenden's Christmas Eve broadcast of 1906, had been one-off. By 1922 there were more than 500 stations in the US, and radio sets became a staple of homes. In Britain the BBC began broadcasting in November 1922. Radio created the mass audience for news, music, advertising and politics.
Before and after
- 22 August 1920Birth of Ray Bradbury
- from 20 September 1920 to 1 January 1932Founding of International Mathematical Union
- from 23 September 1920 to 2 December 1920Turkish–Armenian War
- from 24 September 1920 to 29 November 1920Red Army invasion of Armenia
- 2 November 1920KDKA begins the first commercial radio broadcasts
- from 15 November 1920 to 1 September 1939Free City of Danzig
- from 29 November 1920 to 25 December 1991Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic
- 9 December 1920Birth of Carlo Azeglio Ciampi
- 1921Founding of Poland men's national football team
More in Science & technology
- 15 September 1917Launch of Forbes
- 1923Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory
- 1927Hubble–Lemaître law
- 1936Alan Turing defines the universal machine
- from 1939 to 1946Manhattan Project
- from c. 1940s to 1960sGreen Revolution
The era
This moment belongs to the Modern era (1914 CE to 1945 CE), world wars and a changing world. You can also browse everything in the 20th century.