Timeline of Milestones in Communications History, 1910s

1910

The first commercial radios are sold by Lee de Forest's Radio Telephone Company.

1911

Using loading coils properly spaced in the line, the transmission distance for telephone reaches from New York to Denver.

1912

IRE is founded. (13 May)

Major Edwin H. Armstrong invents the feedback regenerator.

The Titanic sinks, it is equipped with a Marconi wireless set, sending out distress signals.

1913

Armstrong patents his version of the valve generator.

1914

The last pole of the transcontinental telephone line is placed in Wendover, Utah, on the Nevada-Utah state line.

1915

Direct telephone communications opened for service at 4pm, EST. Alexander Graham Bell, in NY, greets his former assistant, Thomas Watson, in San Francisco, by repeating the first words ever spoken over a telephone, "Mr. Watson, come here I want you". Mr. Watson would reply that it would take him a week to get there.

1916

1917

1918

Edwin Armstrong develops a receiving circuit - the superheterodyne.

1919

Radio Corporation of America (RCA) is formed