Media History Timeline
By: Jonathan, Colton and Zane
Pre 1800’s
BCE
1200: Egyptians use pigeons for military communication.
776: Carrier pigeons bear news of the Olympic games.
400: Greeks use carrier pigeons.
CE
100: Roman couriers carry government mail across the empire.
740: A newspaper is printed in China.
1200: European monasteries communicate by letter system.
1450: A few newsletters begin circulating in Europe.
1452: Metal plates are used in printing.
1467: Rome gets a printing press.
1468: Paris gets a printing press.
1477: An advertising poster in England.
1533: A postmaster is appointed in England.
1536: A newspaper is printed: the Gazetta in Venice.
1560: Legalized, regulated private postal systems spread across Europe.
1564: Moscow gets a printing press.
1572: Dutch pigeons carry messages during war with Spain.
1605: First regularly published weekly newspaper appears in Antwerp.
1620: News sheets called "corantos" are sold in Europe.
1631: A French newspaper carries classified ads.
1650: Leipzig publishes the first daily newspaper.
1661: Postal service begins within the colony of Virginia.
1673: Mail is delivered on a route between New York and Boston.
1677: Boston sets up the first organized postal system in the American colonies.
1690: After one issue Publick Occurrences, first colonial newspaper, is suppressed.
1702: The first daily newspaper in the English language, the Daily Courant.
1703: A newspaper starts publication in Peter the Great’s Russia.
1704: In the American colonial city of Boston, a newspaper prints advertising.
1710: German engraver Le Blon develops three-color printing.
1714: A stamp tax forces the closure of many newspapers in England.
1716: Italy gets a newspaper, Diario di Roma.
1719: Jakob Le Blon produces color printing.
1726: Istanbul gets a printing press.
1752: Canada gets its first newspaper, the Halifax Gazette.
1755: Regular mail ship runs between England and the colonies.
1765: The British Stamp Act taxes newspapers
1766: Swedish parliament adopts freedom of the press.
1775: Continental Congress authorizes Post Office
1783: Pensylvania Evening Post, the first daily newspaper in America.
1784: First mail delivery by coaches, between London and Bristol.
1785: Stagecoaches carry the mail between towns in the United States.
1789: French Revolution calls for press freedom, but road will be bumpy.
1789: New United States proposes Bill of Rights, with freedom of faith, speech and
press
1791: England gets a new newspaper, the Observer.
1792: Postal Act promises mail regularity throughout U.S.
1794: First letter carriers appear on American city streets.
1794: Nearly flat rate U.S. postal law mails most newspapers for a penny stamp.
1797: In England, a heavy tax is levied on newspapers to limit the radical press.
1806: William Wilberforce’s 1789 speech in Parliament against slave trade is printed
1800: Iron press permits printing on large sheets of paper, thicker fonts
1811: A printing press is powered by steam
1813: Congress authorizes steamboats to carry mail.
1814: In England, a steam-powered press prints The Times, 1,100 copies an hour.
•1816: Post Office carries newspapers for less than 2 cents postage.
•1819: John Herschel publishes work on photographic chemical processes.?????
1819: Napier builds a rotary printing press
•1880: Muybridge’s Zoopraxiscope projects photographic images in motion.
•1880: France’s Leblanc theorizes transmitting a picture in segments.
•1880: Parcel post.
•1880: Advertising copywriter becomes an occupation.
•1881: The Los Angeles Times.
•1881: France gets press freedom; this time it lasts.
•1881: The first photographic roll film.
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•1881: Bell and Tainter’s graphophone; has better sound than Edison phonograph.
•1881: Selford Bidwell sends electronic image by telegraph using photoelectric cell.
•1882: In England, a twin-lens camera goes into production.
•1882: In England, the first wirephotos.
•1882: Etienne-Jules Marey designs a rifle-like camera that shoots 12 photos per
second.
•1883: Newspapers are folded by machine.
•1884: People can now make long distance phone calls.
•1884: The electric tabulator.
•1884: The Stebbing Automatic Camera, first production model to use roll film.
1884: Lewis Waterman designs a practical fountain pen that doesn’t blot.
•1885: Transparent film negatives are sold.
•1885: Tainter and Bell “graphaphone” uses wax-coated cylinders for better sound.
•1885: Trains are delivering newspapers daily.
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1860: Pony Express carries mail between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento.
1860: Panoramic photography is improved by using curved glass plates.
1860: New York Herald creates the first “morgue” of newspaper clippings.
1860: Frenchman Rene Dagron invents “microfilm” technique using glass plates.
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1861: First chemical means to color photography.
1861: Aerial balloonist sends telegraph message.
1861: Patent issued for a single-lens reflex camera.
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1862: In Italy, Caselli sends a drawing over a wire.
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1863: William Bullock invents the rotary web-fed letterpress.
1863: Typotelegraph sends fax messages between London and Liverpool.
1863: Large U.S. cities get free home delivery of mail.
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1864: Innocenzo Manzetti invents what may be a telephone; seeks no patent.
1864: Maxwell publishes electromagnetic theory that leads to radio wave discovery.
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1865: Experimental photograph is developed inside a camera.
1865: Two San Francisco newspapers, Examiner and Chronicle publish.
1865: West Virginian Mahlon Loomis manages a kind of wireless communication.
1865: Paris and Berlin build networks of pneumatic tube telegram delivery.
1865: Pantelegraph transmits faxes commercially between Paris and Lyon.
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1867: Christopher Sholes of Wisconsin builds a Type-Writer.
1867: Double-column advertising in newspapers.
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1868: Thomas Edison patents a vote recorder.
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1869: From France, color photography, using the subtractive method.
1869: Edison patents stock ticker and printing telegraph.
1869: John Hyatt’s invention of celluloid will lead to phonograph records,
telephones.
1869: American Newspaper Directory estimates newspaper circulation.
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1870: More than 5,000 newspapers are published in the U.S.
1870: Stock ticker comes to Wall Street.
1870: Pigeons carry microphotographed secret messages in Franco-Prussian War.
1870: Telegraph across Europe and Asia connects London with Calcutta, 11,000
km.
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1871: Japan gets a newspaper, Yokohama Mainichi Shimbun (Daily Newspaper).
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1872: Dentist Mahlon Loomis gets patent for wireless invention, but was it radio?
1872: Simultaneous transmission from both ends of a telegraph wire.
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1873: Illustrated daily newspaper appears in New York.
1873: Report about selenium, resistance, and light is a step toward television.
1873: Typewriters get the QWERTY pseudo-scientific keyboard.
1873: Remington starts manufacturing Christopher Sholes’ typewriter.
1873: French astronomer Pierre Janssen designs a photographic “revolver.”
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1874: Quadriplex telegraph system allows four messages to travel over single wire.
1874: Baudot telegraph code prints using five channels of paper tape.
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1875: In France, the praxinoscope, an optical toy, a step toward movies.
1875: Edison invents the mimeograph while trying to improve telegraph tape.
1875: In the U.S., George Carey designs a selenium mosaic to transmit a picture.
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1876: “Mr. Watson, come here. I want you.” Bell invents the telephone.
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1877: Edwin Holmes builds a telephone switchboard.
1877: Bell “photophone” uses light to transmit audio, anticipates fiber optics.
1877: A weather map is printed in an Australian newspaper.
1877: In France, Charles Cros invents the phonograph.
1877: In America, Edison also invents the phonograph.
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1878: Karl Klic produces a commercially successful means of photogravure
printing.
1878: Telephone directories are issued.
1878: In New Haven, Connecticut, a telephone central exchange.
1878: A photograph is reproduced using halftone method.
1878: Full page newspaper ads.
1878: Punch cartoon imagines “telephonoscope”: global, interactive, flat-panel
HDTV.
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1879: Starting in Lowell, Massachusetts, telephone numbers replace names.
1879: Henry James, Daisy Miller.
1879: National Bell Telephone Company is formed.
1879: An electric telescope is designed to capture moving images.
1900: University of Wisconsin experiments with radio transmissions.
1901: In Newfoundland, Marconi receives a radio signal—the letter “s”—from England.
1902: Reginald Fessenden builds a radio wave detector.
1903: Technical improvements in radio, telegraph, phonograph, movies, and printing.
1904: E.F. Alexanderson’s huge alternator adds distance to radio signals.
1907: Marconi starts transatlantic radio service with Ireland to Newfoundland leg.
1909: In San Jose, California, Charles “Doc” Herrold starts a radio station.
1911: A Cincinnati broadcaster gets the first U.S. radio license.
1912: U.S. passes Radio Act to control radio broadcasts; licenses are easy to get.
1912: The Speed Graphic camera is introduced. It will become newspaper standard.
Effects on media 1930 - 1939
1920 – 1929
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1920: Charles Jenkins invents “prismatic rings,” precursor to his mechanical TV.
1920: Sound recording is done electrically. “Talkies” will follow.
 1921: Britain gets its first radio station.
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1921: Radio becomes family fun as hobbyists turn in headphones for speakers.
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1921: Public address amplifiers and loudspeakers are used in military ceremony.
1922: A commercial is broadcast. U.S. radio will be built on “toll broadcasting.
 1922: Herbert Kalmus introduces two-color Technicolor process for movies.
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1922: 15-year-old Philo Farnsworth designs a television “image dissector..
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1922: The BBC goes on the air.
1933: Radio stations fight back with own reporters; UP, INS continue radio service
 1933: Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels employ power of radio to influence the
masses.
1934: Half of the homes in the U.S. have radios
 1936: Alan Turing’s “On Computable Numbers” describes a general purpose
computer.
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1937: NBC has 111 affiliate stations; CBS has 105.
1937: Crash of the zeppelin Hindenburg is captured on a recording, then broadcast
1937: NBC refuses government talk on venereal disease
 1937: British testers judge electronic television superior to mechanical.
1938: Radio broadcasts can be taped and edited
1939: Mechanical television scanning system abandoned
1940: 5.5% of U.S. adult males, 3.8% of females have college diplomas
1940: Zenith experiments with mechanical color wheel television
 1940: First broadband carrier for multiple phone calls.
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1940: For phonograph recording, a single-groove stereo system is developed.
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1940: Peter Goldmark at CBS demonstrates electronic color TV.
1941: The push button telephone
1941: War needs freeze commercial TV development
 1944: Harvard’s Mark I, first digital computer to be put in service.
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1944: First U.S. radio network censorship: sound cut on Eddie Cantor show
song.
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1945: Millions tune in daily to hear news as World War II comes to an end.
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1945: American Broadcasting Co. emerges from sale of NBC Blue in 1943.
1945: Vannevar Bush conceives idea of hyperlinks, hypermedia.
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1946: Television Arts and Science Academy is formed.
Journalism History 1950-2000
By: Jason, Shelby, Monica and Tyrell
1950: Flow-Matic, the first English language data-processing computer
1950: CBS broadcasts in color to 25 television sets..
1950: Many popular soap operas, prime-time radio shows shift to television.
1950: CBS sets up TV news bureau in Washington, D.C.
1950: John von Neumann influences design of computer logic.
1950: Changeable typewriter typefaces in use
1950: Nielsen’s Audimeter tracks television audiences.
1950: Xerox photocopiers roll off the assembly line.
1951: Color television sets go on sale.
1951: The Nagra tape recorder adds precision, quality sound to silent cameras.
1951: Still cameras get built-in flash units.
1951: Univac I is the first mass-produced computer.
1951: Americans can dial long distance calls directly instead of needing operator.
1952: FCC ends freeze, opens UHF band, reserves education channels.
1952: RCA’s Bizmac has first computer database.
1954: Sporting events are broadcast live in color.
1954: Radio sets in the world now outnumber daily newspapers.
1957: Many television programs switch to color.
1958: Live television drama is replaced by videotaped programs.
1959: An all-transistor radio can fit into a shirt pocket.
1959: Bell Labs experiments with artificial intelligence.
1960: AT&T installs first electronic switching system.
1960: PLATO, a computer-based method of education.
1960: A hologram is constructed.
1961: A wireless microphone is used in a movie, Mutiny on the Bounty.
1961: Instant videotape playback in slow motion.
1963: Instant replay.
1963: CBS and NBC TV newscasts expand from 15 to 30 minutes in color.
1963: Polaroid instant photography adds color.
1964: Picturephone tested: Disneyland to N.Y. World’s Fair. Public unimpressed.
1965: 9 of 10 U.S. telephones can use direct distance dialing.
1965: Color news film.
1967: Cordless telephones enter the phone system.
1967: ABC joins CBS and NBC in presenting 30-minute television newscasts.
1968: Approximately 200 million TV sets in the world, 78 million in U.S.
1969: The Saturday Evening Post stops publishing after 148 years. TV blamed.
1970: IBM System 370 allows time-sharing, online computing.
1970: Alohanet, first wireless computer networking system, University of Hawaii.
1970: National Public Radio (NPR).
1970: AP sends news by computer.
1970: FM stations target population segments, introducing “narrowcasting”.
1971: Software patent issued for computerized telephone switching system.
1971: Newspapers switch from hot metal letterpress to offset.
1971: National Public Radio.
1971: Email.
1971: Intel builds the 4004 microprocessor, “a computer on a chip..
1971: Wang 1200 is the first word processor.
1971: New York Times publishes “The Pentagon Papers."
1971: AM-FM radios are installed in new cars.
1972: European manufacturers (Decca, Phillips, AEG) bring out the video disc.
1972: A satellite is used for live television transmission.
1972: New FCC rules lead to community access channels.
1972: Digital television comes out of the lab.
1972: Philadelphia Inquirer builds a computer database for a news story.
1972: Satellites used for television news reports.
1972: Sony’s Port-a-Pak, a much more portable video recorder.
1972: From Canada, a programmable word processor with a video screen, the AES 90.
1972: The Xerox Alto, first computer with a mouse and a graphical interface.
1973: Cell phone is invented.
1973: $575 buys you a computer kit with a micrprocessor, the Scelbi-8H.
1973: For television stations, electronic news gathering (ENG) starts an era.
1973: Xerox sets up a LAN (local area network) called Ethernet.
1973: Newspaper editors get computer terminals.
1973: AP plans to store news photos in its computers.
1974: In England, the BBC transmits Teletext data to TV sets.
1974: Coaxial cable can carry 108,000 phone conversations at the same time.
1974: Satellite transmission of mailgrams.
1974: U.S. newspapers start to replace reporters’ typewriters with terminals.
1974: The word “Internet” enters the lexicon.
1975: Microprocessor used in Taito’s Gunfight.
1975: Philips demonstrates an optical videodisk system.
1975: The microcomputer, in kit form, reaches the U.S. home market.
1975: HBO bounces signal off satellite to reach cable systems and customers.
1976: CB radio use leaps as FCC lifts license requirement.
1976: Small satellite dishes go into residential backyards.
1976: “Electric Pencil,” the first popular microcomputer word-processing program.
1976: Ted Turner delivers programming nationwide by satellite.
1977: In Chicago, AT&T transmits telephone calls by fiber optics.
1977: MCI ends AT&T exclusivity for long distance phone service.
1978: Cellular radio gets spectrum allocated to cable channels 70 to 83.
1978: BBS (Bulletin Board Software) lets computers communicate via phone modems.
1978: First tests of cellular telephones.
1978: Electronic typewriters go on sale.
1979: News groups arrive on the Internet.
1979: USENET begins.
1980: The Minitel telephone system begins in France; it will run for decades.
1980: A 25 lb. portable computer is favorite of reporters who send news from field.
1980: Public international electronic fax service, Intelpost, begins.
1980: Consultants dominate news policy at many U.S. television stations.
1980: The TRS-80 portable computer is favorite of reporters who send news from field.
1980: Addressable cable TV converters pinpoint individual homes.
1981: In France the Minitel system, an national online information hookup.
1981: In England, Prestel videotex adds email service.
1981: BITNET connects university mainframe computers worldwide.
1982: U.S. Post Office begins installing optical scanners nationwide.
1983: AT&T forced to break up; 7 Baby Bells are born.
1983: Cisco Systems starts network router manufacturing business.
1983: TCP/IP becomes standard for Internet communication between computers.
1984: Trucks used for SNG (satellite news gathering).
1985: In Soviet Union, mass communication opens up under "glasnost" policy.
1985: Microsoft ships the Windows 1.0 operating system.
1985: 50 newspapers now offer online access to news texts.
1986: Congress passes Electronic Communications Privacy Act.
1986: U.S., Europe veto Japanese analog HDTV; will develop digital system.
1986: International standards set for audio, video, digital recording.
1986: Television is on for more than seven hours a day in average U.S. home.
1986: Television cameras permitted to cover U.S. Senate.
1987: FCC repeals most of the Fairness Doctrine. Personal Attack Rule remains.
1987: Global teleconference on hunger links 50,000 people in 79 cities.
1987: Government deregulates cable industry.
1987: Bill Atkinson's hypercard brings Vannevar Bush's hyperlink vision to reality.
1988: First transatlantic telephone call over fiber optics line.
1988: Government brochure mailed to 107 million addresses.
1988: Jarkko Oikarinen of Finland writes the Internet Relay Chat software program.
1988: 98% of U.S. homes have at least one television set.
1989: Photos can be digitally manipulated on a home computer.
1989: Tiananmen Square massacre demonstrates power of media to inform the world.
1990: World Wide Web originates at CERN in Europe. Tim Berners-Lee writes program.
1990: Congress passes Children’s Television Act.
1991: Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) written; helps create the World Wide Web.
1991: Motorola works on a communication system to reach every point on the globe.
1991: Data is transmitted through optical fiber at 32 billion bits per second.
1992: Text-based browser opens World Wide Web for general usage.
1992: Number of newspapers offering online news rises to 150.
1993: Nokia sends text messages between mobile phones.
1993: Photojournalists, studio photographers switch to specialized digital cameras. .
1994: Real Audio allows online audio listening in near real time.
1995: The FCC allows radio stations to operate with no one there.
1995: Major U.S. dailies create national online newspaper network.
1996: Digital Associated Press cameras send Super Bowl pix to newspapers in minutes.
1996: Optical fiber cable line stretches across the Pacific. .
1996: Telecommunication Reform Act: phone, cable, broadcast companies compete.
1996: Telecom Act also removes caps on radio station ownership; expansions follow.
1996: A pocket telephone/computer comes on the market.
1997: Streaming audio and video are available on the Web.
1997: Palm produces the first handheld device with the Palm OS.
1997: From Kodak, the first point-and-shoot digital camera.
1997: Optical fiber cable lines now stretch around the world.
1998: Associated Press sells online archive service to newspapers.
1998: "Open Diary," the first hosted blog..
1998: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
•2000: 40 million mobile wireless users worldwide, most in Europe, Asia.
•2000: Microprocessors outdo Moore’s Law with Intel’s 1.5GHz.
•2000: Website created to ease public search of U.S. govt. locations.
•2000: International Online Journalism Awards to be given annually.
•2000: One in four American adults hold college degrees.
•2000: FCC approves Viacom/CBS Merger.
•2000: 7 new Web domain names approved, including .info, .pro, .biz.
•2000: 5.1 billion emails are sent in the U.S; 8.2 billion worldwide.
•2000: FCC authorizes low power, non-commercial FM radio stations.
•2000: 3G (3rd generation) licenses sold for wireless internet.
•2000: In Japan only, Internet cell phones are sold; 40,000 new subscribers daily.
•2000: Bluetooth lets computers converse via low power radio signals.
•2000: From Japan, the camera-phone.
•2000: U.S. government sets up website for official documents.
•2000: 65% of all people in Finland own mobile phones, lead the world.
•2000: Japanese work on Internet-access glove, choker; downloaded talking
ebook.
•2000: Court limits Napster’s Internet file-sharing of music.
•2000: U.S. Postal Service opens Internet postal store.
•2000: More dollars spent on cable advertising than on TV broadcast ads.
•2000: Average American cable customer has a choice of 61 channels.
•2000: In U.S. alone: 100 million cell phone subscribers.
•2000: Seventy million computers connected to the Internet.
•2001: The wireless laptop.
•2001: On cable: Hallmark, National Geographic, ABC Family.
•2001: Patriot Act allows examination of library, Internet use.
•2001: Waking Life, a film shot live, then converted into Roboscope animation.
•2001: From Harry Potter to Crouching Tiger, special effects rock audiences.
•2001: Intelsat becomes private company, not an inter-governmental organization.
•2001: Ixus digital camera produces color prints without computer.
•2001: Time names Albert Einstein the Person of the Century.
•2001: Satellite radio; XM begins broadcasting.
•2001: AT&T develops Natural Language Understanding: voice recognition.
•2001: iTunes.
•2001: Mac OS X operating system.
•2001: An iPod can store 1,000 songs.
•2001: AnnaKournikova virus jams email boxes around the world.
•2001: Code Red and Nimda worms bring major damage to computer networks.
•2001: Much maligned TV newscasts receive praise for reports of New York terrorism.
•2001: Final Fantasy, a life-like, computer-generated feature film.??
•2001: AT&T improves speech synthesizer, uses several languages.
•2001: Personal headsets display movies, video games, spreadsheets.
•2001: USB 2.0 connectors, will become computer standard.
•2001: Instant messaging, short messaging service (SMS), grows in popularity.
•2001: LexisNexis offers 2.8 billion searchable documents from 30,000 sources.
•2001: More than half of all Americans now use the Internet.
•2001: Internet has thousands of online radio stations.
•2001: From Microsoft: the Xbox game player.