The idea of the television had enthralled inventors for years – but the breakthrough came in a poky attic laboratory in London
1925 JOHN LOGIE BAIRD TRANSMITS THE SMALL SCREEN’S FIRST STAR
John Logie Baird rushed down the stairs from his rented Soho attic in a state of feverish excitement. Moments earlier, the 37-year-old had just, for the first time, transmitted a moving television image in greyscale, which clearly showed gradations of light and shade. His subject on that 2 October afternoon had been the crudely made head off a ventriloquist’s dummy – which Baird named ‘Stookie Bill’ – but now he needed to see what a human looked like.