Events

• April 30 - In the United States
  United States
  The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
  
   the FCC
  Federal Communications Commission
  The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
  
   approves the NTSC
  NTSC
  NTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system that is used in most of North America, most of South America , Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories .Most countries using the NTSC standard, as...
  
   standards of 525 lines and 30 frames per second, and authorizes commercial TV to begin on July 1.
• May 2 - In the United States 10 television stations are granted commercial TV licenses (effective July 1). These stations are required to broadcast 15 hours per week. Bulova Watch Co.
  Bulova
  Bulova is a corporation making luxury watches and clocks. It has its headquarters in Woodside, Queens, New York City.Bulova was founded and incorporated as the J. Bulova Company in 1875 by Joseph Bulova , an immigrant from Bohemia...
  
  , Sun Oil Co., Lever Bros. Co. and Procter & Gamble
  Procter & Gamble
  Procter & Gamble is a Fortune 500 American multinational corporation headquartered in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio and manufactures a wide range of consumer goods....
  
   sign on as sponsors of the first commercial telecasts from WNBT in New York
  New York
  New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
  
  .
• July 1 - Commercial TV authorized by the FCC.
• July 1 - The world's first legal TV commercial, for Bulova
  Bulova
  Bulova is a corporation making luxury watches and clocks. It has its headquarters in Woodside, Queens, New York City.Bulova was founded and incorporated as the J. Bulova Company in 1875 by Joseph Bulova , an immigrant from Bohemia...
  
   watches, occurs at 2:29 PM over WNBT (now WNBC) New York before a baseball
  Baseball
  Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
  
   game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies
  Philadelphia Phillies
  The Philadelphia Phillies are a Major League Baseball team. They are the oldest continuous, one-name, one-city franchise in all of professional American sports, dating to 1883. The Phillies are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's National League...
  
  . The 10-second spot displayed a picture of a clock superimposed on a map of the United States, accompanied by the voice-over "America runs on Bulova time." As a one-off special, the first quiz show called "Uncle Bee" was telecast on WNBT inaugural broadcast day of 1941 followed later the same day by Ralph Edwards
  Ralph Edwards
  Ralph Livingstone Edwards was an American radio and television host and television producer.-Early career:Born in Merino, Colorado , Edwards worked for KROW-AM in Oakland, California while he was still in high school...
  
   hosting the second game show
  Game show
  A game show is a type of radio or television program in which members of the public, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles usually for money and/or prizes...
  
   broadcast on United States television, Truth or Consequences
  Truth or Consequences
  Truth or Consequences is an American quiz show originally hosted on NBC radio by Ralph Edwards and later on television by Edwards , Jack Bailey , Bob Barker , Bob Hilton and Larry Anderson . The television show ran on CBS, NBC and also in syndication...
  
  , as simulcast on radio and TV and sponsored by Ivory
  Ivory (soap)
  The name "Ivory" refers to a series of products created by the Procter & Gamble Company , including varieties of a white and mildly fragranced bar soap, that became famous for its pure content and for floating in water. Over the years, the bar soap has been altered into other varieties...
  
   soap. Weekly broadcasts of the show commenced in 1956, with Bob Barker
  Bob Barker
  Robert William "Bob" Barker is a former American television game show host. He is best known for hosting CBS's The Price Is Right from 1972 to 2007, making it the longest-running daytime game show in North American television history, and for hosting Truth or Consequences from 1956 to 1975.Born...
  
  .
• July 1 - NBC
  NBC
  The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
  
   television launched on New York station WNBT on channel 1; CBS
  CBS
  CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
  
   television begins commercial operation on New York station WCBW (now WCBS-TV
  WCBS-TV
  WCBS-TV, channel 2, is the flagship station of the CBS television network, located in New York City. The station's studios are located within the CBS Broadcast Center and its transmitter is atop the Empire State Building, both in Midtown Manhattan....
  
  ) on Channel 2.
• December 7 WNBT airs special news report on Pearl Harbor
  Pearl Harbor
  Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
  
   attack, pre-empting regular programming, a New York Rangers
  New York Rangers
  The New York Rangers are a professional ice hockey team based in the borough of Manhattan in New York, New York, USA. They are members of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . Playing their home games at Madison Square Garden, the Rangers are one of the...
  
   hockey
  Ice hockey
  Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
  
   game.

Debuts

• July 2 CBS Television Quiz
  CBS Television Quiz
  CBS Television Quiz was the first live television game show ever to be broadcast regularly, running from July 2, 1941 to May 25, 1942 on the fledgling CBS Television network. Quiz was an in-house network production and broadcast in black and white...
  
  premieres as television
  Television
  Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
  
  's first regular game show
  Game show
  A game show is a type of radio or television program in which members of the public, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles usually for money and/or prizes...
  
   (1941-1942).

Television shows

Births

• January 8 - Graham Chapman
  Graham Chapman
  Graham Arthur Chapman was a British comedian, physician, writer, actor, and one of the six members of the Monty Python comedy troupe.-Early life and education:...
  
  , English actor and comedian. (d. 1989)
• January 31 - Jessica Walter
  Jessica Walter
  Jessica Walter is an American actress, known for the films Play Misty for Me, Grand Prix, and for her role as Lucille Bluth on the sitcom Arrested Development...
  
  , actress.
• February 5 - David Selby
  David Selby
  David Lynn Selby is an American character and stage actor. He has worked in movies, soap operas and television. The naturally black-headed Selby is best known for playing the roles of Quentin Collins on the ABC-TV serial, Dark Shadows , and as the evil and compassionate...
  
  , actor.
• April 3 - Eric Braeden
  Eric Braeden
  Eric Braeden is a German-American film and television actor, best known for his role as Victor Newman on the soap opera The Young and the Restless and as John Jacob Astor IV in the 1997 film Titanic...
  
  , German-born actor.
• April 20 - Ryan O'Neal
  Ryan O'Neal
  Charles Patrick Ryan O'Neal , better known as Ryan O'Neal, is an American actor best known for his appearances in the ABC nighttime soap opera Peyton Place and for his roles in such films as Paper Moon , Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon , A Bridge Too Far , and Love Story , for which he received...
  
  , actor.
• April 28 - Ann-Margret
  Ann-Margret
  Ann-Margret Olsson is a Swedish-American actress, singer and dancer whose professional name is Ann-Margret. She became famous for her starring roles in Bye Bye Birdie, Viva Las Vegas, The Cincinnati Kid, Carnal Knowledge, and Tommy...
  
  , Swedish-born actress, dancer and singer.
• May 13 - Senta Berger
  Senta Berger
  Senta Berger is an Austrian film, stage and television actress, producer and author.Regarded by critics as one of the greatest actresses of the post-war period, and frequently named as one of the leading German-speaking actresses in polls, Berger has received many award nominations for her acting...
  
  , Austrian actress and producer.
• June 2 - Stacy Keach
  Stacy Keach
  Stacy Keach is an American actor and narrator. He is most famous for his dramatic roles; however, he has done narration work in educational programming on PBS and the Discovery Channel, as well as some comedy and musical...
  
  , actor.
• June 21 - Joe Flaherty
  Joe Flaherty
  Joe Flaherty is an American-Canadian actor and comedian. He is best known for his work on the Canadian sketch comedy SCTV, from 1976 to 1984, and as Harold Weir on Freaks and Geeks...
  
  , Canadian-American actor and comedian.
• June 22 - Michael Lerner
  Michael Lerner (actor)
  -Life and career:Lerner was born in Brooklyn, New York of Romanian Jewish descent, the son of Blanche and George Lerner, who was a fisherman and antiques dealer. He was raised in Bensonhurst and Red Hook. His brother, Ken Lerner, is also an actor...
  
  , actor.
• July 29 - David Warner
  David Warner (actor)
  David Warner is an English actor who is known for playing both romantic leads and sinister or villainous characters, both in film and animation...
  
  , English actor.
• September 26 - Martine Beswick
  Martine Beswick
  Martine Beswick is an English actress and model, best known for her roles in two James Bond films.-Biography:Beswick was born on 26 September 1941 in Port Antonio, Jamaica to English parents....
  
  , English actress and model.
• October 10 - Peter Coyote
  Peter Coyote
  Peter Coyote is an American actor, author, director, screenwriter and narrator of films, theatre, television and audio books. His voice work includes narrating the opening ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics and Apple's iPad campaign. He has also served as on-camera co-host of the 2000 Oscar...
  
  , actor.
• October 31 - Sally Kirkland
  Sally Kirkland
  Sally Kirkland is an American film and television actress.-Early life:Kirkland was named after her mother, fashion editor Sally Kirkland, who was a fashion editor at Vogue and LIFE magazines, and was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her father, Frederic McMichael Kirkland, worked in the scrap...
  
  , actress.
• November 1 - Robert Foxworth
  Robert Foxworth
  Robert Heath Foxworth is an American film, stage and television actor.-Early life and career:Foxworth was born in Houston, Texas, the son of Erna Beth , a writer, and John Howard Foxworth, a roofing contractor...
  
  , actor.
• November 18 - David Hemmings
  David Hemmings
  David Edward Leslie Hemmings was an English film, theatre and television actor as well as a film and television director and producer....
  
  , English actor, producer and director (d. 2003)
• November 21 - Juliet Mills, English actress.