The World in 1936 the year pictures came through the air

The BBC drew its new television pictures with 405 lines of light. A phone screen today uses thousands of them, which is why those first broadcasts looked like a charcoal sketch that moved.

Life back then

Almost nobody had seen television. A set cost about as much as a small car, and only homes near London could pick up the signal at all. Everyone else got moving pictures at the cinema, where a newsreel ran before the film and showed the Olympics, the floods and the king. Boys traded cigarette cards of footballers and racing drivers out of their fathers' packets. At home the wireless stayed on through Sunday afternoon, and a thick new novel about the American South was passed around until the spine gave out.

The year in 8 events

• 🎬Feb 5 Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times opens in New York, with factory machines running faster than the men who feed them.
• ⚔️Feb 26 Young army officers seize part of Tokyo and kill several ministers. The revolt fails, but the army ends up with more say over the government.
• 🥾Mar 7 German troops march into the Rhineland, which treaties had left free of soldiers.
• 🏛️Jun 30 Haile Selassie stands before the League of Nations in Geneva and asks for help against Italy, which has taken his country. Little is done.
• 🕯️Jul 17 An army revolt against the government starts the Spanish Civil War.
• 🏅Aug 1 The Olympics open in Berlin, staged as a show for the Nazi state. Jesse Owens wins four gold medals over the next nine days.
• 🗳️Nov 3 Franklin Roosevelt is re-elected, carrying 46 of the 48 states.
• 📻Dec 11 Edward VIII gives up the British throne to marry Wallis Simpson and explains his choice on the radio. He had been king only since January, when his father died.

You selected the year1936

Pick a month to narrow your search.

Today is September11, 2026 Friday.

Born ?

Who Was in Charge?

Share & Embed Take this date with you