KDKA broadcasts
The Pittsburgh station licensed on 27 October 1920 broadcasts the Harding–Cox election returns, playing phonograph music into the microphone between the results. It is conventionally counted the first commercially licensed American broadcasting station, though other claimants exist. By 1922 there were more than five hundred American stations, and music had acquired a distribution channel that required no shop, no purchase and no proximity to a musician.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Radio diffusion · phenomenon · not located
- Sound recording · technology · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
KDKA — radio station, Pittsburgh
KDKA was licensed on 27 October 1920 and broadcast the Harding–Cox election returns on 2 November 1920, playing phonograph music between results; more than five hundred American stations were operating by 1922. V55 verification basis: retrieved in search summary across reference and engineering-history sources; none was opened, and the claim to be the first such station is disputed by other claimants.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, with corroborating engineering-history accounts · Partly verified
britannica.com entry on KDKA; ethw.org, "KDKA, First Commercial Radio Station"
Recorded on Radio diffusion
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
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- The first jazz record is made · 1917-02-26
- Berliner patents the gramophone · 1887-11-08
- Edison demonstrates recorded and reproduced sound · 1877