The 1964 Tokyo Olympics were the first broadcast overseas without flying tapes across.

1964

Earlier Games went by plane; this time the signal reached the US via Syncom 3, the first geostationary communications satellite.

◍ Show on the globe

The event

• Tokyo Olympics1964 · Tokyo. In October 1964 Tokyo hosted the first Olympic Games held in Asia. The Games, the first relayed live by satellite, showcased a rebuilt Japan; the flame was lit by a young man born in Hiroshima on the day of the atomic bombing.

20th century

More amazing facts

• 1962 · 1963 Decca Records turned the Beatles down.
• 1963 Valentina Tereshkova is the only woman ever to fly in space alone.
• 1963 The Moscow–Washington hotline was once cut by a Finnish farmer's plough and another time by a Danish bulldozer.
• 1963 The first woman flew into space when the Beatles had released just one album.
• 1964 · 1978 The echo of the Big Bang was first blamed on pigeon droppings.
• 1965 · 1975 The first man to walk in space was, ten years later, the first to shake an American's hand in orbit.

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