W2XBS, Schenectady, New York. In 1928, Felix the Cat was one of the first images ever broadcast by television when RCA chose a papier-mâché Felix doll for an experimental broadcast on W2XBS. The doll was chosen for its tonal contrast and its ability to withstand the intense lights needed in early television and was placed on a rotating phonograph turntable and televised for about two hours each day. The doll remained on the turntable for nearly a decade as RCA fine-tuned the picture's definition, and converted to electronic television.

• ... that a television station mistakenly broadcast footage of a different person three times while trying to film a suspect for killing a child?
• ... that although Armond Seidler invented the pugil stick for military training purposes, it later found use in the television show American Gladiators?
• ... that Mike Gorman spent 43 consecutive years as the television play-by-play commentator for the Boston Celtics?
• ... that Michael Gove, now a member of the House of Lords, appeared on the television quiz show Top Club?
• ... that CBS executive Laurence Tisch found out on a tennis court in the U.S. Virgin Islands that rival network NBC had bought his company's affiliate station in Miami?
• ... that an anime programming block that originally aired on the American television channel TechTV was the inspiration for the co-founder of a Japanese animation studio?

• ...that copies of the 1982 biopic Will: G. Gordon Liddy, about a Watergate co-conspirator, are stored in the Nixon Presidential Materials collection at the U.S. National Archives?

• ...that popular 1950s game show Down You Go is one of the only U.S. television series to air on all four networks of television's Golden Age: ABC, NBC, CBS and DuMont?

• ...that the ABC television network created controversy when they licensed and produced a doll based on fictional rapist Todd Manning?

• ...that Gordon Murray, the creator of classic British children's television shows Trumpton, Camberwick Green and Chigley, burnt all but one of his puppets on a bonfire in the 1980s?

• ...that like the characters in his television series The Practice and Boston Legal, David E. Kelley worked as a lawyer in a Boston law firm?

George Formby (born George Hoy Booth; 26 May 1904 – 6 March 1961) was an English actor, singer-songwriter and comedian who became known to a worldwide audience through his films of the 1930s and 1940s. On stage, screen and record he sang light, comic songs, usually accompanying himself on the ukulele or banjolele, and became the UK's highest-paid entertainer.

Born in Wigan, Lancashire, he was the son of George Formby Sr, from whom he later took his stage name. After an early career as a stable boy and jockey, Formby took to the music hall stage after the early death of his father in 1921. His early performances were taken exclusively from his father's act, including the same songs, jokes and characters. In 1923 he made two career-changing decisions – he purchased a ukulele, and married Beryl Ingham, a fellow performer who became his manager and transformed his act. She insisted that he appear on stage formally dressed, and introduced the ukulele to his performance. He started his recording career in 1926 and, from 1934, he increasingly worked in film to develop into a major star by the late 1930s and 1940s, and became the UK's most popular entertainer during those decades. The film historian Brian McFarlane writes that on film, Formby portrayed gormless Lancastrian innocents who would win through against some form of villainy, gaining the affection of an attractive middle-class girl in the process. (Full article...)

31 July 2026 – Morocco–Spain relations

Spanish authorities close the Melilla border crossing with Morocco after around 400 migrants stormed the border barrier. RTVE reports the sound of gunfire and explosions. (AA)

7 July 2026 – Iraq in the 2026 Iran war

Iraqi state television says that former Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei's remains has arrived in Iraq's Shi'ite holy city of Najaf for viewing following funeral ceremonies in Tehran and Qom, Iran. (Reuters)

6 July 2026 – Impact of the 2026 Iran war on Iran

Iranian state television reports that Khamenei's body arrives in Qom, where he studied, ahead of a planned procession. (AFP via Al-Ahram)

1 July 2026 – Middle Eastern crisis

Iranian state television reports that a foreign container ship was grounded in shallow waters after using an unapproved route through the strait. (MS Now)

28 June 2026 – Mass media in Uganda

Uganda's military surrounds the offices of Nation Media Group outlets in Kampala after army chief Muhoozi Kainerugaba orders the shutdown of the company's newspapers, television station, and radio networks. (AFP via The Daily Star)