Did You Know: Leos Who Changed the World

Two geniuses in the field of electronics whose inventions changed pastimes the world over were born in August. One was television pioneer Philo Farnsworth, whose 1906 birthday is noted today. He conceived the idea of television broadcasting while still in high school and realized his dream at the age of 21. The other was Lee de Forest, a Yale Ph.D. in physics. He invented the three-element vacuum tube among his hundreds of patents and was a pioneer in radio, which in the early 20th century was so unbelievable he was once arrested for selling stock to underwrite his invention. Over 225,000 Americans work in the roughly 8,900 radio and TV broadcasting establishments advanced by Farnsworth and de Forest. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau, online at www.census.gov.