The Kingsbury Commitment allows rural and independent telephone companies to interconnect with the Bell System. The first transcontinental telephone line opens between New York and San Francisco. Communication between two airplanes is also demonstrated. President Woodrow Wilson issues a proclamation assuming control of the telephone and telegraph systems in the United States, placing them under the authority of the Post Office Department. 1920 KDKA in Pittsburgh is granted a radio license.
Commercial broadcasting begins.
Bell system engineers demonstrate the first transmission of pictures over telephone wires. Philo Farnsworth invents the television. The number of rural telephone systems swells to an all-time high of 6,000. The first color photographs are sent over wire from San Francisco to New York, for the New York World. The Federal Communications Commission is created.