Who Invented Television?

No one person was the inventor of the television. Instead, it evolved through the work of many scientists and innovators over several decades.

By the time the word "television" was introduced at the 1900 World's Fair in Paris, several inventors had taken steps toward the transmission of images over wires. In the mid-1920s, American Charles Jenkins and Scotsman John Baird both demonstrated the transmission of moving images.

By the beginning of World War II, several nations and companies had seen the potential in television and a few thousand sets -- many of them built from kits by electronics enthusiasts -- were in use around the world. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the first U.S. president to give a televised speech, a talk at the 1939 World's Fair.