Puzzle No. 2: Chain

On 2 November 1936 the British Broadcasting Corporation began the world's first regular, public, high-definition television service from studios at Alexandra Palace in north London. Two rival systems were trialled on alternating weeks, John Logie Baird's 240-line mechanical-scan system and the electronic 405-line Marconi-EMI system, with the latter selected in early 1937. Programming was initially limited to roughly two hours a day for the few thousand households able to afford receivers within range of the transmitter. Though small in audience, the launch marked the practical birth of the television age as a scheduled broadcasting institution rather than an experimental novelty. The 405-line standard established here influenced subsequent television engineering, and the BBC's model of regular studio programming set precedents for the medium worldwide. After a wartime suspension from 1939, the service resumed in 1946 and television expanded rapidly across industrialised nations, eventually displacing radio as the dominant household medium and reshaping news, entertainment, advertising, and political communication for the remainder of the century.

Read the full story · See the world in 1936 CE

Before BBC Begins the World's First Regular Television Service

Before BBC Begins the World's First Regular Television Service

Before BBC Begins the World's First Regular Television Service

Before BBC Begins the World's First Regular Television Service

Before BBC Begins the World's First Regular Television Service

Before BBC Begins the World's First Regular Television Service

Before BBC Begins the World's First Regular Television Service

Before BBC Begins the World's First Regular Television Service

After BBC Begins the World's First Regular Television Service

After BBC Begins the World's First Regular Television Service