| 1944 |
 Chronomedia index
Numbers after entries link to the list of references. |
links and notes |
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Cultural highlights | Predictions made this year |
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| January 1 |
African Journey is the first feature-length foreign film shown on American television. |
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| January 15 |
Patent is granted for the Eidophor television projection system. |
> 1955 |
| February 10 |
BBC adopts a voluntary code not to broadcast any discussion of issues for two weeks before scheduled parliamentary debates—the so-called Fourteen Day Rule. |
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| February 20 |
First appearance of the Batman cartoon strip in US newspapers. |
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| February 21 |
NBC starts its War as It Happens news programme in New York. |
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| March 2 |
Academy Awards ceremony is held at Graumann's Chinese Theater in Hollywood for the first time, hosted by Jack Benny. |
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Golden Globe Awards are instituted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. |
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| April 10 |
Three US television stations link to transmit a programme, Patrolling the Ether, simultaneously. |
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| May 2 |
Television station WABD begins transmissions on channel 5 in New York. It becomes part of the DuMont network, later WNEW and then WNYW (part of the Fox network). |
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| June 6 |
BBC starts broadcasting War Report to mark the D-Day landings. |
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| June 7 |
AEF Programme, a joint British, Canadian and US radio service, begins broadcasting to the Allied Expeditionary Forces now beginning the liberation of Europe. Its signature tune is Oranges and Lemons. |
> 1945 |
| June 30 |
Bush House, headquarters of the BBC European services, is hit by a German flying bomb. |
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| August 12 or 16 |
Probably the last day on which the German television studios in Paris were in use. As later reported after the Allied liberation, the site included four studios: one for a six-camera set-up and seating for 250, another about 130 ft x 60 ft an 25 ft high and two smaller ones of about 30 ft x 15 ft. |
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| August 16 |
J L Baird demonstrates his Telechrome colour all-electronic television receiver, with a 600-line three-gun tube comprising a fluorescent two-sided mosaic screen in a glass envelope, one side blue-green, the other side orange-red. Images of 600-line definition are triple-interlaced, requiring six scans (fields) to form one frame. A smaller Telechrome tube (now held by the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television at Bradford, Yorkshire) was subsequently made with one electron beam perpendicular to the screen. |
 NMPFT |
| August 28 |
BBC begins broadcasting in Dutch to Indonesia and French to South-east Asia. These are the last foreign language services set up during wartime. |
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| September |
Following liberation on September 9-10, Radio Luxembourg, which had been damaged by enemy action, is used by the Allies for psychological warfare, for a short time called 'The Voice of the United Nations on the Frontiers of Germany'. Station Twelve-Twelve (the frequency being 1212 metres) begins broadcasting what are ostensibly reports from regional underground operations within Germany. |
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| September 28 |
Boys from Boise is the first musical comedy shown on US television. |
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| autumn |
Allied agents in occupied Europe begin to use 'Joan-Eleanor', a two-way radio communications system devised by Al Gross, operating at 250 MHz—beyond German frequency detection capability—and with a range of 30 miles. The Eleanor unit is housed in Mosquito aircraft but the Joan unit is small enough to fit in a pocket. |
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| October 1 |
French television transmissions re-commence from studios in the rue Cognacq-Jay, now under Allied control. |
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| October 8 |
First episode of Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet on CBS radio. |
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| late |
J L Baird demonstrates the first facsimile television system, using scanned film as the source, with a transmission rate of 25 newspaper pages a second. |
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| late |
British Lion Film Corporation buys Worton Hall Studios at Isleworth, west London, from Criterion Film Productions. The first British Lion production is The Shop at Sly Corner. |
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| November 4 |
In his regular broadcast for CBS radio, Edward R Murrow reports that television development continued in Paris during the Nazi occupation. |
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| • |
CBS correspondent Charles Collingwood reports on a visit to the laboratories of Compagnie des Compteurs at Montrouge, near Paris, where research under René Barthélemy has continued during the occupation. A system of 819 lines is completed. A high definition 1015- and 1042-line systems has been under development since 1940 at an R&D cost of more than Ffr 10m. Compagnie des Compteurs has formed a subsidiary called Compagnie Francaise de Télévision.
Collingwood also reports on a visit to the former German television studios in Paris. |
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| November 11 |
American Federation of Musicians lifts its ban on recording by its members when RCA Victor and Columbia agree terms. |
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| November |
American Forces Network (AFN) establishes its French headquarters in the Herald Tribune building in the rue de Berry, Paris. The French government provides a 15 kW transmitter. |
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| December 8 |
First issue of French film trade magazine Le Film Français, founded by Jean-Bernard Derosne et Jean-Placide Mauclaire. |
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| December 15 |
Aircraft carrying bandleader Major Glenn Miller is lost over the English Channel. |
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| December |
British Decca Record Company issues first recordings made by ffrr (full-frequency-range recording). The techniques employed have been developed by a team under chief engineer Arthur Haddy as part of a secret war research project for RAF Coastal Command to make recordings illustrating the subtle differences in the sounds of British and German submarines. |
> 1945 |
| • |
Film cameras are used to record television pictures from cameras aboard US aircraft and guided missiles. |
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| • |
Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinématographiques (IDHEC), the leading French film school, is founded in Paris. |
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Centre Cinématographique Marocain (CCM) is founded in Morocco to develop and promote the country's film industry. |
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| • |
UK: Odeon chain now comprises 619 cinemas, ABPC has 442—between them they control about one-third of all seating capacity. The ‘duopoly’ that will dominate UK cinema for over 40 years is born. |
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| • |
Teddington Studios receives a direct hit by a flying bomb, causing suspension of production for four years. |
> 1948 |
| • |
Advisory Council on Children's Entertainment Films is set up in England. The first chairman is Lady Allen of Hurtwood (1897-1972). |
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| • |
BBC General Forces Programme introduced. |
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By now over half of all US advertising agencies have television departments. |
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| • |
Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (3M) in US begins experimentation with magnetic coatings. |
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| • |
Rise of disc-jockey radio programming in the USA. |
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| • |
Frank Sinatra has the highest earned income for the year of any individual in the US: $1.4m. |
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| • |
Alexander M Poniatoff founds Ampex Electric and Manufacturing Company in San Carlos, California. |
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| • |
Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals is founded. |
Statement of principles |
