---
title: "Which came first, Pakistan or television?"
description: "Pakistan vs television: television came first, by 22 years — 1925 against 1947. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/pakistan-vs-television/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Pakistan or television?

**Which came first, Pakistan or television?: television**

1925 — 22 years before Pakistan

television came first, by 22 years. Baird transmitted the first moving greyscale image.

## Side by side

|  | Pakistan | television |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1947 | 1925 |
| Date | 1947-08-14 | 1925-10-02 |
| Category | country | invention |
| What happened | Pakistan became independent at midnight, one day before India. | Baird transmitted the first moving greyscale image. |

## Pakistan

Pakistan and India were created by the same act of parliament, but Mountbatten had to attend both ceremonies, so he took the Pakistani one in Karachi on 14 August and the Indian one in Delhi on the 15th. Pakistan is therefore one day older than India in the sense the question means. Independence in both cases took effect at the same instant: midnight between the two dates.

## 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, Pakistan or television?

television, by 22 years — 1925 against 1947.

### When did Pakistan start?

1947. Pakistan became independent at midnight, one day before India.

### When did television start?

1925. Baird transmitted the first moving greyscale image.

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## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]
- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History — Smithsonian Institution (https://naturalhistory.si.edu/)