Titanic distress call received in NYIn 1912, David Sarnoff picked up a message of distress call of the Titanic relayed from ships at sea: “S.S. Titanic ran into iceberg, sinking fast.”Sarnoff, aged 21, was a telegraph operator managing a powerful Marconi radio telegraph station on top of Wannamaker's department store in New York. He stayed at his post for 72 hours, receiving and transmitting the first authentic information on the disaster. He relayed the names of the rescued from the Carpathia telegraph operator to newsmen and frantic family members. Sarnoff went on to become a pioneer in radio and television broadcasting: He founded NBC in 1926, created an experimental television station for NBC in 1928, and became president and chairman of RCA. |
