Television is one of our most important means of communication. It brings moving pictures and sounds from around the world into millions of homes. People with a television set can sit at home and watch the President of the United States make a speech or visit a foreign country. They can see a war being fought, and they can watch government leaders try to bring about peace. Through television, viewers can see and learn about people, places, and things in distant countries. Television even takes viewers out of this world with coverage of the astronauts exploring outer space.

Many scientists contributed to the development of television, and no one person can be called its inventor. Experiments leading to the invention of TV began in the 1800's, but progress was slow. Television as we know it today was not developed until the 1920's. It had little importance in communication until the late 1940's, when local over-the-air broadcasting of entertainment television began. Television stations used electronic signals called electromagnetic waves to send programs over the airwaves from a nearby transmitter to antennas in homes.

Today, over-the-air broadcasting is only one of several ways to transmit programs to TV viewers. About 60 percent of the American homes with television sets subscribe to cable television systems, which use cables to bring programs to the home. Other households subscribe to direct-broadcast satellite (DBS) systems, which enable viewers to receive signals directly from satellites. In addition, many homes have videocassette recorders (VCR's) that enable people to watch programs distributed through stores.

Excerpt from the "Television" article, The World Book Encyclopedia © 1999