This day in history

John Logie Baird, a Scottish inventor, gives the first public demonstration of a pictorial-transmission machine he calls a televisor. Baird's invention used mechanical rotating disks to scan moving images into electronic impulses. This information was then transmitted by cable to a screen where it showed up as a low-resolution pattern of light and dark. Baird's first television programme showed the heads of two ventriloquist dummies, which he operated in front of the camera apparatus out of view of the audience.

The principle behind transmitting images through electric currents had actually existed since 1875, but Baird was the first to make practical advances in television technology. In 1928, he made the first overseas broadcast from London to New York and the same year demonstrated the first colour television. His early British broadcasts never reached more than about 100 television sets, but he was responsible for launching a revolution in communication and entertainment.

Germany observes its first Holocaust Remembrance Day.
 

Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara stages a military coup in Niger.
 

Manchester United player Eric Cantona is fined £20,000 and banned from playing football for nine months after he attacked a fan who taunted him.
 

Mike Tyson goes on trial charged with raping an 18 year old contender in the 1991 Miss Black America contest.
 

The Red Army liberates the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz in Poland.