The first 'face' on television belonged to a ventriloquist's dummy.

1925

In 1925 John Logie Baird transmitted the head of 'Stooky Bill', then ran downstairs for a 20-year-old office worker, who became the first person televised in full tone.

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The event

• First public demonstration of television1926 · London. On 26 January 1926 Scottish inventor John Logie Baird showed scientists in London's Soho a transmission of moving images of human faces. Mechanical television soon gave way to electronic systems developed by Vladimir Zworykin, Philo Farnsworth and others.

20th century

More amazing facts

• 1923 · 1955 The insulin patent was sold for one dollar, and the polio vaccine was never patented.
• 1923 · 1949 The Hollywood Sign began as an ad for a housing estate and read HOLLYWOODLAND.
• 1925 · 1970 For half a century, shoe shops fitted shoes under X-rays.
• 1926 Australia and New Zealand have argued for decades over who invented the pavlova.
• 1927 · 1952 The last wild European bison was killed in the Caucasus in 1927.
• 1927 The first feature-length talkie was mostly silent.

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