Communications: The Story of Communications

[Music] [Applause] [Music] through the streets of a great City a wonderful rumor picked up from the radio has begun to spread to grow from a smiling whisper to a joyful shout before the rumor is authentic people crowd the boulevards to celebrate the coming of Peace in another country 200 M away they rais their voices to cheer The Unofficial [Music] peace and across an ocean they have heard this news of history that is not yet made then the official story breaks and wires flash it to the waiting news presses of the world news boys gather their bundles and run into the street shouting a story that everyone knows already on paper and By Word of Mouth the news spreads over continents the word that every man and woman has waited to [Music] [Applause] [Music] hear wireless radio sends the news around the world to Wilderness outposts and deep into the jungle the heavy silence that hangs over the dense forest growth is broken by a drumbeat rhythm carrying the news centuries are bridged as the story carried by radio is picked up by the sound of ancient drums in this contrast is summed up the history of man's need and effort to communicate with his fellow [Music] men ancient men used sound the pounding of drums to span great distances with great news and they used light huge signal fires to penetrate the night and relay from the hilltops the news of Victory or defeat This Is How They sent the news of great events but men had other thoughts more subtle and complex to share and to record for this they built written languages symbols and characters like the hieroglyphs of the ancient Egyptians on Greek Scrolls and on Roman tablets alphabet systems were recorded by hand then in 15th century Germany Johan Gutenberg made possible the printed page introducing movable type that could be set in any combination the Chinese had used such type for half a century but it was new in Europe and its spread was revolutionary as the countries of Europe grew in power there sprang up a Commerce of communication by the 17th century documents of trade and diplomacy traveled between the capital cities by rapid Carriage post over new highways many times the deepest secrets of Finance and State were given to the Swift trained wings of carrier pigeons the wars and revolutions that reshaped Europe in the 18th century were signaled across the Countryside by the earliest semaphor across the English Channel flashed letters that spelled the victories and defeats of the Napoleonic [Music] armies meanwhile in America men pushed west across a new continent leaving the harbor cities on the Atlantic they traveled far and their need for communications was acute when in 1825 the Hudson River was linked to the Great Lakes by the Erie Canal news of the Canal's opening was relayed down the Hudson by cannon [Music] [Music] shots the echo of cannons in a river valley was hardly more advanced than the smoke signals of the Indians that lived on America's Western Plains [Music] the Prospectors and Cattlemen and homesteaders who made their lives in the western territory were linked to each other and to the big cities back east by stage [Music] cach vital Communications followed the swifter route over the Prairie by Pony Express but soon the telegraph stretched across the continent to carry these messages in 1840 Samuel Morse had patented a machine that sent and received a coded message propelled through Wire by electricity the communication systems of a continent and then the world were revolutionized [Applause] [Music] in 20 years the telegraph poll was part of the American landscape lines had stretched from the Eastern Seaboard to Missouri and then on to California news of war and family weddings birth notices and flood warnings went by Telegraph then in 1876 the telephone was patented the first switchboard one year later brought Alexander Graham Bell's invention into commercial use carrying the human voice itself on wire telephone wire was strung out now across the Horizon taking its place beside the telegraph Crossing Borders and boundary lines an electric charge had changed the world's Communications and created great new Industries to machine the transmitters and receivers the switches and wires and cables that carry our great news and our [Music] gossip before communication lines could blacken the sky transcontinental wires were Twisted into cable and plowed into the ground hidden away from thunderstorms and freezing winds these cables run through mountains farming land and grazing country under dry rocky soil and under Rich s carrying the nation's messages from Ocean to Ocean and our cities are connected today with cities across the ocean the modern telephone has followed telegraphy overseas but the regular Telegraph travels through underwater cables to cross oceans the telephone is hooked up with wireless radio [Music] in 1895 the first signals of wireless radio were transmitted to shore from the yacht Electra anchored in an Italian Harbor gulo Marone had harnessed sound with electricity and broadcast it one mile through the air [Music] within a year Marone had built an antenna so large that his receiver set in the harbor mountains picked up sounds broadcast from the ship 18 mil at Sea a new medium was given the men who had been experimenting with electronic communications in Laboratories and in attic workshops no combination was left untried and before long the wireless had been adapted to carry the human voice radio men were prepared now to move toward commercial [Music] broadcasting homemade receiving sets were already being put together at the workbenches of amateur [Music] enthusiasts the year 1920 saw America's first commercial broadcast carrying news and entertainment from station transmitters out over the airwaves to be picked up by home [Music] receivers today complex control panels act as sensitive filters broadcasting the most subtle shades of tone accurate and clear in every country correspondents are stationed to bring the news of the world directly to the living room radio set speeding through the air the modern plane has through its radio Direct Communications with the control tower on the [Music] ground radio keeps the airplanes straight and safe on its course with the Perfection of the radio telephone the dream of easy communication between a speeding car and a liner at Sea is not too [Music] fantastic another fantastic Communications dream that came true is television the casting of pictures live images like sound through the air now outmoded by the cathod ray tube this machine broke down for transmission the moving images recorded in the first television Studio [Music] today the television screen can carry a two-dimension image of the outside world into our homes as easily as our radios bring us [Music] sound for on the spot reporting the television camera matches in importance the newsreel camera bringing us closer to the little event and the great ones that make the news in a fast-paced world of Rapid change the speed with which news comes to us is a vital thing here the latest dispatches from every corner of the Earth are fed by Electric teletype into the newspaper office flashed from copy desk to Press Room printed and rolled out ready to hit the street corners where a few pennies will buy news of worldwide crisis or local scandal here is what they call a typical American Town fairly independent on the surface but underneath tied to the rest of the world with newsprint Telegraph radio [Music] telephone when disaster crushes down like this ties to the outside world are snapped the town is isolated desperately men try to reach out to give warning and call for Aid to [Music] communicate this tangle of broken wires means Darkness a silent telephone and fear the hurricane winds can still be heard in the distance as men turn out to repair the shattered lifelines the poles are lifted from their crazy angles and set once again perpendicular against the sky prayed wires are patched and spliced and restrung [Music] torn cables are mended and laid straight again once more electric power moves through the lines this is the first job and the most important to bring men close again to the world around them to establish again the link of communications [Music]