On this day, the Scottish inventor, electrical engineer, and innovator, John Logie Baird, demonstrated the world’s first colour television transmission. Baird had started his experiments with television in 1923 and had built what was to become the world’s first working television using items that included an old hatbox and a pair of scissors, some darning needles, a few bicycle light lenses, a used tea chest, sealing wax and glue. The following year he demonstrated to the Radio Times that a semi-mechanical analogue television system was possible by transmitting moving silhouette images. His experiments led to the first public demonstration on 26th January 1926. Baird’s early technological successes and his role in the practical introduction of broadcast television for home entertainment have earned him a prominent place in television’s history.
