Today Is November 21

On November 21 and 22 1996, the United Nations held the first World Television Forum, where leading media figures met under the auspices of the United Nations to discuss the growing significance of television in today's changing world and to consider how they might enhance their mutual cooperation. In December 1996 the United Nations proclaimed November 21 as World Television Day in recognition of the increasing impact television has on decision-making by bringing world attention to conflicts and threats to peace and security and its potential role in sharpening the focus on other major issues, including economic and social issues. It commemorates the date on which the first World Television Forum was held in 1996.

The word "television" comes from the words "tele" (Greek for far away) and vision (sight). It first entered the English language in 1907 at the start of attempts to transmit moving images. 

Scottish electrical engineer John Logie Baird Baird gave the first public demonstration of televised silhouette images in motion at Selfridge's Department Store in London in March 1925. Baird's early system used a large spinning disc through which a picture could be broken down into horizontal lines.

CBS's New York City station begins broadcasting the first regular seven days a week television schedule in the U. S. on July 21, 1931. 

RCA began commercial production of  color TV sets  on March 25, 1954, and 5,000 Model CT-100's were produced. Initially $1,000, its price was cut to $495 in August 1954. 

The SPARK Museum of Electrical Invention

St. Claire of Assisi, who died in 1253 AD, was named the Patron Saint of Television by Pope Pius XII in 1958, based on an incident in which she claimed the moving image and sound of a Catholic Mass had been miraculously projected on the wall of her room when she was too sick to attend. 

A small percentage of static on televisions is actually radioactive resonance from the Big Bang 13 billion years ago.