KDKA Broadcasts Election Returns
On November 2, 1920, Pittsburgh station KDKA broadcast returns from the American presidential election.
Published · Updated · 1 min read
The Event
On November 2, 1920, Pittsburgh station KDKA broadcast returns from the American presidential election. Listeners with radio receivers could hear results without waiting for the next newspaper edition.
The Wider Story
The broadcast helped demonstrate radio's usefulness to a public audience. Receivers, headphones and improvised aerials were part of an emerging listening culture.
Putting the Event in Perspective
Claims that this was simply the first radio broadcast erase earlier experiments and other stations.
Reading the Historical Record
Its significance is more accurately explained through the development of regular licensed broadcasting and election-night news.
About the Historical Recreation
The accompanying visual is an illustrative reconstruction: a 1920 radio operator's desk dissolving to a family listening with headphones. It is not authentic archival footage, an eyewitness record or additional evidence for the event.
Sources
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