Brexit minister’s shock resignation leaves Boris Johnson reeling

 

Boris Johnson was dealt another major blow to his leadership last night as it emerged the man overseeing Brexit was resigning from the cabinet.

With Tory MPs already warning the prime minister that he would have to regain control of the government to survive as leader until the next election, it emerged that Lord Frost is to leave the government after frustrations over Brexit negotiations and broader concerns over the government’s Covid policies and tax increases.

The shock departure represents another dangerous moment for Johnson, following a series of scandals and a humiliating byelection defeat last week that saw his party lose a 23,000 majority. Frost’s departure is also another sign of the major fissures opening up within the Tory party.

The peer has been vocal in recent weeks about his concerns over tax increases and the reimposition of Covid restrictions. He is understood to have spoken out against a rise in national insurance to pay for health and social care spending. He also has concerns about plan B Covid measures, which provoked the largest ever Tory rebellion under Johnson’s leadership.

At a conference last month he said: “I am very happy that free Britain, or at least merry England, is probably now the freest country in the world as regards Covid restrictions. No mask rules, no vaccine passports, and long may it remain so.”

However, Frost has also had to accept concessions over Brexit, with the British government dropping its demand to block the European court of justice from being the ultimate arbiter of trade rules in Northern Ireland. The government has also backed away from his threat to trigger Article 16 of the Brexit agreement, which would suspend parts of the trade deal agreed for Northern Ireland.

Whitehall insiders said Frost approached the prime minister recently about leaving the government, as he felt Brexit talks were not progressing. There had been an agreement for him to leave at the end of January. However, that has been brought forward after news of his planned resignation leaked. Northern Ireland’s former first minister Arlene Foster described Lord Frost’s resignation as “enormous”. Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesperson Layla Moran said: “The rats are fleeing Boris Johnson’s sinking ship.”

It comes as senior Conservative MPs said they believed rapidly rising prices and tax increases in the spring, followed by a drubbing for the Tories in May’s local elections, will mark the beginning of the end of Johnson’s premiership. After the humiliating byelection loss to the Liberal Democrats in the previously safe Conservative seat of North Shropshire, the prime minister is being told he has only three to four months to turn things around or risk being ousted.

While MPs from all wings of the party agree that, with the Omicron variant spreading like wildfire, now is not the time to strike, many are beginning to fear for their own seats at the next general election, and say May will be the decisive moment. Frustration is deep and anger is running high, but MPs say they must hold off for the time being.

One former minister said: “If there was not a pandemic I would be writing and signing my letter now and sending it off to Graham Brady [chair of the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers] to trigger a leadership contest. And I think most of us would do the same.”

Another former minister said that while MPs agreed that Johnson should be given time to recover ground in the new year – after a disastrous period in which sleaze and scandals of rule-busting No 10 parties have dominated headlines – few had any confidence that he would change.

The former minister said: “Boris isn’t willing to bring in new people, he isn’t willing to re-engage with the parliamentary party, he isn’t willing to do the hard graft, he isn’t willing to do the detail.

“Everybody is saying: ‘Let’s go through the process of giving him the opportunity to change,’ but we all know where this is going and it is not pleasant. We are heading towards a leadership challenge. The next yardstick is the local elections.”

Martin Vickers, a Johnson loyalist and member of the 1922 Committee executive, said he was “confident” that the PM could reassert the strong leadership he showed before the 2016 Brexit referendum and 2019 election, but added: “He has got to do that straight away and avoid the drift of the last few weeks.”

Charles Walker, a former vice-chair of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbench MPs, said it would be “unconscionable” to try to get rid of Johnson in the next few weeks, but warned of tough times ahead as the cost of living increases.

“The next six months are going to be extremely challenging for a variety of reasons, but mainly Omicron and the impact that yet another iteration of this virus will have on already fractured supply chains and the cost of living,” he said.

“The Conservative party is not in a position to have a leadership contest in these circumstances. It is just not conscionable. Having said that it is clear that over the next three months we cannot have a rerun of the past three months.”

Tory grandee Sir Roger Gale last week became the first Conservative to say he had sent his letter to Brady. Under party rules, if the committee chairman receives 54 letters in favour of a vote of no confidence in Johnson, he will be required to stage one.

If UK voters now begin to blame the government for rising prices, Tories fear a change at the top could be their only hope. Next spring the government will come under pressure from a combination of tax increases and rising prices that will eat further into living standards.

In April, the energy regulator Ofgem is expected to allow a significant rise in the gas price cap that protects millions of households from volatile wholesale prices. Several high-profile gas suppliers have gone bust in recent months after they were unable to stem losses from supplying households with energy at below market prices

Raining goals and cuddly toys: Real Betis get the party started

 

 Cuddly toys thrown on the pitch at the Benito Villamarín

There were some people on the pitch. Some Pokémon too and some bunnies and some bears. Lots and lots of bears. Lots of goals, too. At half-time in Real Betis’s final home game of 2021, on the night when they sang and danced and hugged and finished the year in a position higher than they have finished any season since 1935, a party breaking out in Heliopolis, it started raining cuddly toys. An annual tradition now, fans had been asked to bring theirs to the ground – no bigger than 35cm please, and no batteries included – and throw them from the stands, flying through the air onto the grass below. Or into blankets waiting to catch them, as if all those stuffed minions and their mates were leaping from a burning building.

Everywhere, it was raining cats and dogs, and sheep and dinosaurs. On the night when Betis presented Alba, an eight-year-old who overcame leukaemia, as their “star signing”, 52,158 people were in the stands at the Benito Villamarín, the place packed and over 19,000 cuddlies were on the pitch, literally sack-fulls of the things, gathered up and given to kids for Christmas. Which they had to do fast: there was still half a game to play, and that turned out pretty special too. “Pfff,” Marc Bartra said. “A great night when it all came together, from a football and fan point of view, one of the best I’ve experienced here.”

Related: Vlahovic plays Father Christmas for Fiorentina but parting gift may not be far away | Nicky Bandini

One that ended with the Benito Villamarín belting out the club’s anthem. “Here we are to sing you a song,” it begins, “… and even if you were last, you’d be champions in our eyes.”

Betis are not last. They’re not champions either, and they’re not going to be, but they’re a lot closer than anyone expected. One up at half-time, they had struggled. Their goal was another gift, Real Sociedad goalkeeper Alex Remiro leaving his goal and almost the pitch for a ball he didn’t need to chase way out near the touchline and allowing Alex Moreno to roll into an open goal from 20 yards, like a golfer sinking a long putt. La Real striker Cristián Portu alone had five chances, not unjustly insisting afterwards “we were much better than them in the first half”. And even Betis coach Manuel Pellegrini admitted he “didn’t like” the opening 45 minutes. But in the second, they had let loose, Juanmi, Nabil Fekir and Moreno scoring three more and now the place was bouncing, arms around shoulders all around the stadium as they sang.

Manuel Pellegrini dishes out instructions to Nabil Fekir

Betis don’t tend to do things quietly – this is a big, loud, laughing kind of place – but this time they have. Which does tend to be Pellegrini’s way, not least because he thought it had to be. Volcanic as a player, he took a conscious decision to be calm as a coach, aware too that the attention had to be the players’. “A man who never takes to the stage,” in the words of Jorge Valdano, who signed him – and then was forced to sack him after just one season – as coach of Real Madrid. “If you give Pellegrini time he makes good teams,” said the Bernabéu’s former sporting director a little pointedly on Sunday night and at Betis he certainly has.

Pellegrini took over after a difficult 2019-20 season in which they sacked coach Rubí with eight games to go and eventually finished 15th. He had a difficult start but then, although they drew too often – seven of their last 10 last season – took them on a run in which they lost just one of the 26 games they played since the turn of the year and finished sixth. This season, combining domestic football and the Europa League, where they tend to rotate, they have lost four in the league: to Villarreal, Madrid, Atlético and Sevilla, which may say something about their level or even their limitations but certainly says something about their consistency.

Sunday night was their fourth win in a row, local paper Estadio Deportivo calling them a “Champions League cyclone”, the Diario De Sevilla claiming that they were living in a “state of nirvana”, a team that “delights”. They could say that again, and so they did, spewing out a cascade of eulogies for a team they called: “a delicious generator of football”. Betis’s own website took a different approach. “We could make this match report more beautiful with loads of superlative adjectives, but there’s no point,” it read. “You have to experience it for yourself, live Betis.” It’s not bad advice. Always watch Betis. The fourth goal in particular was gorgeous.

Only Madrid have taken more shots or scored more goals. No one is as enjoyable to watch as Fekir, a player so outrageously talented, so good, so silly at times that he makes his team mates laugh. Sunday night’s goal was typically superb, consistency now added to his quality. Sergio Canales, once that teenage revelation, may be better than ever at 30 having come through terrible injuries. Juanmi certainly is, fast becoming a cult hero. “Oh, Juan Miguel, we all want a goal from Juan Miguel,” they sing to the tune of Ay Mamá Inés and most weeks they get one as well. At least they do these days: seemingly half way out in the summer, he’s just one behind his best season total. A lot of that is down to the manager: “He knows me well. He’s a coach with very clear ideas, a very recognisable style that he is laying down at Betis,” he says. “There are lots of players who have had low moments

“It’s a footballing conviction, an idea that the players carry out without doubting,” Pellegrini said on Sunday night. Bartra explains: “I’ve had some great coaches and Manuel is definitely one of them. He has three or four very clear ideas. He tells every player exactly what they need, no more and no less. It’s simple, nothing out of this world, but he’s very intelligent in how he tells you. We believe in what we’re doing and you can see that. When you’re about to go out, everyone knows exactly what they have to do. The ball has to be ours, everyone has a space, but with [some] freedom, the offensive movements are worked through. We’re very compact, in a 4-2-3-1 where the positioning is very important but there is some freedom within that and all of us defend: it can’t be just four. Solidarity is the word I would use. The idea doesn’t change and there is stability not, which is important.”

“He is very even tempered: when you win you’re not the best in the world and when you lose you’re not the worst,” Bartra adds. “And honestly, there’s no euphoria inside. We know how bad things can get, how fast they can get worse.” For now, though, they just keep getting better. “What I take with me is the win and the way the fans enjoyed it. It’s been a brilliant year in every sense,” Pellegrini said at the end, embracing Moreno, scorer of two goals, when the whistle went. There were tears in the full-back’s eyes on Sunday night when at last he stopped running up the left wing and looked up at the fans still there and still singing, sacks of cuddly toys lined up around the pitch. “I’m super-emotional,” he said. “This was one of the happiest days I’ve had. I just hope there are many more ahead.”

 Juanmi celebrates after scoring against Real Sociedad

Carles Puigdemont could be freed after arrest in Sardinia, says lawyer

 

Carles Puigdemont’s immunity as a member of the European parliament was removed in March.

The former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, who was detained in Sardinia on Thursday under an international arrest warrant issued over his alleged role in the failed bid for regional independence four years ago, could be released later on Friday, according to his lawyer.

Puigdemont, now an MEP living in Belgium, could face extradition to Spain over his alleged involvement in the unilateral independence referendum and the subsequent unilateral declaration of independence in October 2017.

He faces charges of sedition and misuse of public funds, for which Spain’s supreme court issued a European and international arrest warrant almost two years ago.

The former regional chief was arrested on Thursday evening while on his way to attend a cultural event in the Sardinian city of Alghero and meet the regional head of Sardinia and its ombudsman. A hearing was held on Friday at the appeal court in the Sardinian city of Sassari.

Related: EU parliament strips Carles Puigdemont and two other Catalans of immunity

Antoni Comin, Clara Ponsati and Carles Puigdemont.

Puigdemont’s lawyer, Agostinoangelo Marras, told reporters outside the courthouse that a three-judge panel would take up the extradition request and reach a decision “in a very short time”. Marras also said the process would take a few weeks and that the judge had ordered Puigdemont to remain in Sardinia pending the outcome of the extradition request.

The former regional chief and two of his former ministers, Antoni Comín and Carla Ponsatí – who also fled Spain and are also MEPs – were stripped of their immunity by the European parliament in March this year. But the decision to lift their legal immunity can still be appealed.

Another of Puigdemont’s lawyers, Gonzalo Boye, said his client had travelled to Sardinia in his capacity as an MEP, and claimed the Spanish arrest warrant issued for the former Catalan chief had been suspended. However, a Spanish judicial spokesperson said that the supreme court arrest warrant remained active.

Previous attempts to extradite Puigdemont from Germany and Belgium have proved unsuccessful.

Spain’s Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said Puigdemont ought to face justice, adding that he respected “all legal procedures opened in Spain, in Europe and, in this case, in Italy”.

News of the arrest led pro-independence demonstrators to stage a protest outside the Italian consulate in Barcelona, while Sardinian separatists gathered outside the court in Sassari in solidarity with Puigdemont.

“Sardinians have found it painful to see their land transformed into such an ugly scene, where the Italian police arrested a Catalan on the orders of the Spanish magistrates,” said Antonio Moro, president of the Partito Sardo d’Azione – the independence party to which the Sardinia’s governor, Christian Solinas, belongs.

He added: “It’s something that mortifies us.”

The arrest came a week after the Sánchez met the current pro-independence Catalan president, Pere Aragonès, for talks aimed at resolving the political impasse over the future of the region.

Despite Puigdemont’s arrest and pending legal proceedings, Sánchez insisted on Friday that “dialogue is the only way to bring together Catalans who have different opinions and to bring together Catalans with the rest of Spain”.

Sánchez’s coalition government has shown a far less confrontational approach to the Catalan question than its predecessor. The conservative government of Mariano Rajoy deployed police to stop the October 2017 referendum, which was ruled illegal and unconstitutional by Spanish courts. With the support of the senate, Rajoy then used constitutional powers to assume control of the region, dissolve its parliament and call fresh elections.

Sánchez’s more moderate approach has been fiercely criticised by his opponents. In June, the government took the controversial and divisive step of pardoning nine of the Catalan independence leaders who were convicted for their roles in the unsuccessful push for secession.

The prime minister acknowledged the decision could prove unpopular, but said it was “the best one for Catalonia, the best one for Spain, and the one which most closely represents the spirit of coexistence and harmony set out in the Spanish constitution”.

Puidgdemont was not included in the pardons as he has never faced trial.

Aragonès offered his support to Puigdemont, saying the “persecution and judicial repression” had to stop, and repeating calls for an amnesty and for Catalan self-determination.

The Sardinian city of Alghero hosted a significant Catalan community after it was conquered in the 14^th century by the Aragonese crown and strong cultural links have been maintained to this day, with its Catalan dialect still recognised as a minority language.

Puigdemont was due to be guest of honour at the three-day AdiFolk festival, where Catalan folk musicians and dancers will perform. He was also due to attend an assembly of Sardinian separatists on Sunday in Oristano. Sardinia has its own independence movement, with activists campaigning in 2014 for the island to be sold to Switzerland.

Els talibans admeten el possible retorn d'amputacions, lapidacions i execucions: "Depèn de les lleis islàmiques"

 

L' organització ha admès que les amputacions, lapidacions i execucions de delinqüents podrien tornar a l' Afganistan després de la presa dels talibans .

Mentre els seus combatents es preparaven per assumir el poder a Kabul , el grup islamista militant va insistir que protegiria els drets de les dones, els mitjans de comunicació i els diplomàtics.

Però, preguntat sobre els càstigs violents als delinqüents - un segell distintiu del govern brutal dels talibans a la dècada de 1990 -, un portaveu va dir: "Això depèn dels seguidors religiosos i dels tribunals. Ells decidiran sobre el càstig ".

Preguntat específicament sobre la picada de mans i peus, lapidacions i assassinats estatals, Suhail Shaheen va dir a la BBC: "No puc dir ara mateix. Correspon als tribunals, als jutges i a les lleis ".

Els comentaris van arribar fins i tot quan Shaheen intentava calmar els temors sobre el retorn del grup al poder, inclòs que el seu lideratge no pot controlar a molts dels seus combatents.

"Assegurem a la gent, especialment a la ciutat de Kabul, que les seves propietats i la seva vida són segures", va dir el portaveu a l'entrevista.

“El nostre lideratge havia donat instruccions a les nostres forces per romandre a les portes de Kabul, no entrar a la ciutat. Estem esperant una transferència pacífica de poder ”, afegint que els talibans esperaven que això passés ben aviat.

El govern dels talibans es va fer famós per càstigs, incloses les execucions públiques per a assassins condemnats i les amputacions de persones declarades culpables de robatori.

Les dones van quedar gairebé completament excloses de la vida pública, com l’ocupació i l’educació, i les noies de 10 anys o més es van desanimar per anar a l’escola.

El grup militant també va prohibir la televisió, la música i el cinema i va destruir relíquies no islàmiques, com ara el 2001 les famoses estàtues de Buda Bamiyan al centre de l'Afganistan.

Les històries de terror ja han sorgit de zones que han caigut en mans dels insurgents talibans els darrers dies.

El mes passat, combatents del grup van entrar a les oficines del banc Azizi a la ciutat del sud de Kandahar i van ordenar que marxessin nou dones que hi treballaven, de manera que els parents masculins podrien ocupar el seu lloc.

Però, parlant en directe per un telèfon mòbil a la BBC, Shaheen va dir que les dones "tindran accés a l'educació i al treball" i podran sortir de casa sense acompanyament masculí.

"Respectarem els drets de les dones: la nostra política és que les dones tinguin accés a l'educació i al treball per portar el hijab", va dir.

Els talibans creien que "ningú hauria d'abandonar el país" perquè "necessitem tots els talents i la capacitat, necessitem que tots quedem al país i participem".

Es creu que Dominic Raab , el secretari d’exteriors sotmès al foc, torna d’unes vacances, a mesura que la crisi s’aprofundeix.

Va tuitejar que havia "compartit les meves profundes preocupacions" amb el ministre d'Afers Exteriors afganès, i va afegir: "Crític que la comunitat internacional estigui unida en dir als talibans que la violència ha d'acabar i els drets humans han de ser protegits".

Taliban says its 'type of rule' will become clear soon after president flees to 'avoid bloodshed'

 A senior Taliban official has declared victory in Afghanistan, praising the "unrivalled feat" of taking the capital Kabul and ousting the president

 Taliban fighters are pictured inside Kabul's presidential palace

Mullah Baradar said in a video statement on Sunday that the militants' road to power was unexpectedly fast, but the "war in Afghanistan is over now".

He told Al Jazeera the "type of regime" the Taliban plans to introduce "will become clear soon", but they will guarantee the safety of all citizens and officials.

Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen told the Associated Press that they are holding talks to form an "open, inclusive Islamic government".

It comes after the group captured the presidential palace and 11 districts of Kabul, causing President Ashraf Ghani to flee "bloodshed".

British troops arrived in the city to help evacuate UK nationals over the weekend, as the Pentagon ordered a further 1,000 US personnel and countries across the globe scrambled to get their diplomats out of the country safely.

A Taliban spokesman said the nature of its rule will 'become clear soon

Earlier on Sunday Reuters reported Mr Ghani's departure Tajikistan, citing a senior interior ministry official.

But in a later Facebook post, the president said he was faced with a "hard choice" between the "armed Taliban" or "leaving the dear country that I dedicated my life to protecting the past 20 years".

"If left unchecked, countless patriots would be martyred and the city of Kabul would be devastated, resulting in a major humanitarian catastrophe in the six-million-strong city," he said.

"The Taliban had made it clear that they were ready to carry out a bloody attack on all of Kabul and the people of Kabul to oust me. In order to prevent a flood of bloodshed, I decided to leave."

Taliban fighters are pictured in Ghazni, southeastern Afghanistan as they raise their flag

He added that the militants had "won victory in a judgment of sword and gun" and they "have a responsibility to protect the honour, prosperity and self-respect of our compatriots".

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani is pictured speaking inside parliament in Kabul

It came amid reports of several explosions in city, despite the Taliban saying that they wanted a "peaceful transition of power".

Prime Minister Boris Johnson chaired a COBRA meeting on the Afghan crisis this evening after requesting to recall parliament from its summer break on Wednesday.

He said the UK and its international partners should work to ensure "Afghanistan does not become a breeding ground for terror" once again.

Mr Johnson added that the "situation remains difficult" and the world is facing a "change of regime in Kabul".

As British troops from the 16 Air Assault Brigade landed on Sunday, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic ordered its pilots to stay away from Afghan airspace over security concerns.

Women on the streets of Kabul over the weekend

Mr Johnson said the government is trying to get as many British nationals out of the country as it can "in the next few days".

A Foreign Office spokesperson added that the UK had "reduced" its diplomatic presence in Afghanistan, "but our ambassador remains in Kabul and UK government staff continue to work to provide assistance to British nationals and to our Afghan staff".

According to The Sunday Telegraph, Britain's ambassador to Afghanistan Sir Laurie Bristow is going to be flown out of the country by tonight.

The Taliban has made rapid gains over the past week, with Western countries urgently deploying troops to assist with the evacuation of diplomatic staff.

Meanwhile, crowds of people were seen at the border gate to Pakistan in an attempt to leave the country over the weekend, as militants drove through the streets of Kabul.

The Islamists have said there will be no fighting in the city and anyone who wants to leave should be able to do so peacefully, with women told to head for protected areas.

But President Ghani's comments on Sunday painted a very different picture, with international observers fearing the worst.

The UN Security Council said it would hold an emergency meeting on Monday morning, with secretary-general Antonio Guterres urging the Taliban to "exercise utmost restraint in order to protect lives".

Afghans walk towards the border with Pakistan in a bid to escape the crisis

US President Joe Biden announced he was sending 6,000 troops to Kabul to help remove personnel - and the evacuation of the American embassy has now begun.

US diplomats have been urgently destroying sensitive documents, with helicopters seen flying over the US embassy.

The Biden administration has warned Taliban officials any actions that put American personnel at risk "will be met with a swift and strong US military response".

The president has defended his decision to withdraw US troops from the country in the coming weeks, and said the task of fighting back against Taliban insurgents must fall to Afghan forces.

He warned that an indefinite American military presence in Afghanistan is not an option, and has vowed not to pass on the war to a fifth US president.

But the handling of the crisis has attracted criticism from some American politicians, with his predecessor Donald Trump claiming that Mr Biden "gets it wrong every time on foreign policy" and it "will go down as one of the greatest defeats in American history".

In a strongly worded statement, Mr Trump said: "After I took out ISIS, I established a credible deterrent. That deterrent is now gone. The Taliban no longer has fear or respect for America, or America's power

Who Invented Television

 Multiple inventors deserve credit for the technology, which had its origins in the 19th century.

The way people watch television has changed dramatically since the medium first burst onto the scene in the 1940s and ‘50s and forever transformed American life. Decade after decade, TV technology has steadily advanced: Color arrived in the 1960s, followed by cable in the ‘70s, VCRs in the ‘80s and high-definition in the late ‘90s. In the 21st century, viewers are just as likely to watch shows on cell phones, laptops and tablets as on a TV set. Amazingly, however, all these technological changes were essentially just improvements on a basic system that has worked since the late 1930s—with roots reaching even further back than that.

Early TV Technology: Mechanical Spinning Discs

No single inventor deserves credit for the television. The idea was floating around long before the technology existed to make it happen, and many scientists and engineers made contributions that built on each other to eventually produce what we know as TV today.

Television’s origins can be traced to the 1830s and ‘40s, when Samuel F.B. Morse developed the telegraph, the system of sending messages (translated into beeping sounds) along wires. Another important step forward came in 1876 in the form of Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone, which allowed the human voice to travel through wires over long distances.

Both Bell and Thomas Edison speculated about the possibility of telephone-like devices that could transmit images as well as sounds. But it was a German researcher who took the next important step toward developing the technology that made television possible. In 1884, Paul Nipkow came up with a system of sending images through wires via spinning discs. He called it the electric telescope, but it was essentially an early form of mechanical television.

TV Goes Electronic With Cathode Ray Tubes

In the early 1900s, both Russian physicist Boris Rosing and Scottish engineer Alan Archibald Campbell-Swinton worked independently to improve on Nipkow’s system by replacing the spinning discs with cathode ray tubes, a technology developed earlier by German physicist Karl Braun. Swinton’s system, which placed cathode ray tubes inside the camera that sent a picture, as well as inside the receiver, was essentially the earliest all-electronic television system.

Russian-born engineer Vladimir Zworykin had worked as Rosing’s assistant before both of them emigrated following the Russian Revolution. In 1923, Zworykin was employed at the Pittsburgh-based manufacturing company Westinghouse when he applied for his first television patent, for the “Iconoscope,” which used cathode ray tubes to transmit images.

In 1929, Zworykin demonstrated his all-electronic television system at a convention of radio engineers. In the audience was David Sarnoff, an executive at Radio Corporation of America (RCA), the nation’s biggest communications company at the time. Born into a poor Jewish family in Minsk, Russia, Sarnoff had come to New York City as a child and began his career as a telegraph operator. He was actually on duty on the night of the Titanic disaster; although he likely didn’t—as he later claimed—coordinate distress messages sent to nearby ships, he did help disseminate the names of the survivors.

Utah Inventor Battles Giant Corporation

April 30, 1939, New York City: This is the scene viewed on the television receivers in the metropolitan area, as the National Broadcasting Company inaugurated the first regular television service to the American public telecasting the ceremonies marking the opening of the New York World's Fair. Later, viewers heard and saw President Roosevelt proclaim the fair open.

Sarnoff was among the earliest to see that television, like radio, had enormous potential as a medium for entertainment as well as communication. Named president of RCA in 1930, he hired Zworykin to develop and improve television technology for the company. Meanwhile, an American inventor named Philo Farnsworth had been working on his own television system. Farnsworth, who grew up on a farm in Utah, reportedly came up with his big idea—a vacuum tube that could dissect images into lines, transmit those lines and turn them back into images—while still a teenager in chemistry class.

In 1927, at the age of 21, Farnsworth completed the prototype of the first working fully electronic TV system, based on this “image dissector.” He soon found himself embroiled in a long legal battle with RCA, which claimed Zworykin’s 1923 patent took priority over Farnsworth’s inventions. The U.S. Patent Office ruled in favor of Farnsworth in 1934 (helped in part by an old high school teacher, who had kept a key drawing by the young inventor), and Sarnoff was eventually forced to pay Farnsworth $1 million in licensing fees. Though viewed by many historians as the true father of television, Farnsworth never earned much more from his invention,and was dogged by patent appeal lawsuits from RCA. He later moved on to other fields of research, including nuclear fission, and died in debt in 1971.

Sarnoff, with his marketing might, introduced the public to television in a big way at the World’s Fair in New York City in 1939. Under the umbrella of RCA’s broadcasting division, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), Sarnoff broadcast the fair’s opening ceremonies, including a speech by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Expeditions that changed the course of history

North America, South America, Asia, Africa, Australia: these were all once lands untouched by Europeans. The day that men set off to explore the world changed everything for everyone.

The period between the 15th and 18th centuries, perhaps wrongly named the Age of Discovery despite the fact that many of the lands were already inhabited, saw Europeans spread across the globe. Even after these impactful explorations, humans have continued to adventure to faraway places, even to the sky and the Moon.

From Columbus to Armstrong, here are the most important expeditions that changed the world.

Mount Everest

They took 350 porters and 5 tons of baggage on the adventure! When they finished, Hillary's best friend was waiting at the bottom with hot soup for them. Rightly so!


Edmund Hillary (1919-2008)

In 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first men to reach the top of Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world. Hillary is credited most with the achievement because he placed his foot on the summit first.

Roald Amundsen (1872-1928)

Amundsen was an incredible explorer of the coldest regions on Earth. In 1897, he set off to find the Northwest Passage, which is the route that connects the Pacific and Atlantic oceans to the Arctic Ocean. Explorers had been looking for it for years.

Discoveries

Roald Amundsen went further than just the Northwest Passage. He was the first man to reach the South Pole and to fly over the North Pole. Therefore, he was the first human to conquer the most uninhabited areas in the world.

Christopher Columbus (1451-1506)

We all know of Columbus. He was supposedly the first man ever to cross from Europe to South America.

Where did he go?

In 1492, Columbus was looking for a quicker way to get to India. Accidentally, he ran into Latin America. In his life, he made three trips over the Atlantic Ocean for further exploration of the 'new' land. It is said that Columbus made the first connection that led Europe to colonize Latin America.

Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

The famous scientist was also an explorer in his own right. Darwin had been studying biology at Cambridge when he was asked to go on an exploration voyage on the HMS Beagle.
The Galapagos

Charles Darwin then spent five years traveling around South America recording species, habits, and environments. He focused his research on the Galapagos Islands. All of the research was used to create the controversial book 'On the Origin of Species' (1859).

David Livingstone (1813-1873)

In the 19th century, Africa was a pretty mysterious place for most outside the continent. David Livingstone set out to explore the continent and get to know its cultures. He arrived there in 1865.

Missing?

While Livingstone was trekking through Africa, he also sought to find a way to halt the slave trade because he could see the damage it caused. Originally, he was meant to return after two years, but instead he stayed until his death. The British, meanwhile, thought he had gone missing.

Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) and William Clark (1770-1838)

Lewis and Clark's expedition was to survey and charter the West of the United States. It seemed like a simple job, but they had no idea how big the mission they had taken on would be.

The West

After an astonishing 8,000-mile (almost 13,000-km) trek, the Corps of Discovery reached what is now Oregon. Their way back was very difficult, as they encountered Native Americans who attacked them. On their return, they were hailed as heroes by President Thomas Jefferson and the people.

Neil Armstrong (1930-2012)

We need hardly tell you what happened here! On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong successfully undertook the mission to land on the Moon.

"One small step for man"

Armstrong's expedition made human’s dreams of space a reality. It was the first direct connection with another land in outer space, but was by no means the last.

Amelia Earhart (1897-1937)

In 1929, history was made when the first female aviator crossed the Atlantic Ocean. Incredibly, she was only the 16th woman in the world to have obtained a pilot's license.

More to it

Earhart was also the first person in history to ever fly over both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The aviator's life is shrouded in mystery, however, as she disappeared in 1937 and was never seen again.

Zheng He (1371-1433)

During the Ming Dynasty, Zheng He explored the world in totality. The Emperor bid him to show the greatness of the empire to other countries. With this aim, he went on seven expeditions!

Did Columbus do it?

By recording where they went, Zheng He was able to make a map of their expeditions. As you can see, there is an America. This map was created years before Christopher Columbus hit the seas. Contrary to our history books, it's very possible that the Chinese came across the Americas before the Europeans.

Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512)

Does that first name look familiar to you? America was named after Vespucci because of his exploratory success. In 1497, he sailed from Spain to South America, and was convinced he had discovered a new continent.

The rios

Even though he was wrong about the new continent as it had already been visited by a few others, his explorations put Rio de Janeiro and Río de la Plata on the map.

John Cabot (c. 1450–c. 1500)

In 1497, this burly man led a voyage across the North Atlantic Sea and stumbled across Canada. He originally thought that Canada was Asia, which is why he planted a British flag on it.

Disappearance

Born in Italy, Cabot dedicated his life to exploration and was set to return to Canada. In 1498, he set off again with a fleet. But John Cabot never returned. No one knows what happened to him and his ships.

Hernán Cortés (1485-1547)

Many will know of the Conquistador Cortés. He left Spain at the age of 19 to explore the world and decided to conquer the Aztec Empire in Mexico.

The Aztec Empire

Here you can see a depiction of Córtes talking to the Emperor of the Aztecs. But there was not that much talking done in reality. Brutally, Córtes and his men killed over 100,000 indigenous people, but many more died of illnesses that the Europeans brought over.

Francis Drake (c. 1540–1596)

Francis Drake was a great friend of Queen Elizabeth (1533-1603). He is famous for sailing around the whole world and claiming California for the British Empire.

Virginia

The Queen liked him so much that she did not let him go off and explore the Americas more, but he found other ways to do so. Drake invested in an expedition that ended up claiming Virginia. Its name comes from Queen Elizabeth's nickname, the "Virgin Queen."

James Cook (1728-1779)

At the age of 29, Cook was already the master of a ship. In 1770, he endeavored to explore the Pacific and Australia.

New Zealand and Australia

On his voyage upon the HMS Endeavour, he gathered information on New Zealand, the Great Barrier Reef, and Australia. Importantly, he proved that Terra Australis, the hypothesized continent, did not exist.

Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521)

Magellan organized an expedition to explore the East Indies in 1519. However, more notable than the expedition is that he circumnavigated the Earth.

Around the world

The voyage was treacherous. Of the five ships that set off from Seville, Spain, only one returned. Magellan, along with 251 men on board, died before the expedition ended.