---
title: "Which came first, the aeroplane or television?"
description: "the aeroplane vs television: the aeroplane came first, by 22 years — 1903 against 1925. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/aeroplane-vs-television/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, the aeroplane or television?

**Which came first, the aeroplane or television?: the aeroplane**

1903 — 22 years before television

the aeroplane came first, by 22 years. The Wright Flyer made four powered flights at Kitty Hawk.

## Side by side

|  | the aeroplane | television |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1903 | 1925 |
| Date | 1903-12-17 | 1925-10-02 |
| Category | invention | invention |
| What happened | The Wright Flyer made four powered flights at Kitty Hawk. | Baird transmitted the first moving greyscale image. |

## the aeroplane

The first flight lasted 12 seconds and covered 36 metres — less than the wingspan of a Boeing 747. The Wrights' real contribution was not the engine but three-axis control, which they worked out with a wind tunnel of their own design after finding the published lift tables wrong. Sixty-six years separate that flight from the Moon landing, well within a single lifetime.

## television

John Logie Baird transmitted a recognisable moving image of a ventriloquist's dummy in October 1925 using a mechanical spinning-disc system. Philo Farnsworth demonstrated fully electronic television in 1927, and it was that approach, not Baird's, that every subsequent television used. Regular public broadcasting began in 1936, which means television is younger than the talking film and older than the ballpoint pen.

## Common questions

### Which came first, the aeroplane or television?

the aeroplane, by 22 years — 1903 against 1925.

### When did the aeroplane start?

1903. The Wright Flyer made four powered flights at Kitty Hawk.

### When did television start?

1925. Baird transmitted the first moving greyscale image.

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## Sources

- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History — Smithsonian Institution (https://naturalhistory.si.edu/)