Video: '1920s Radio Broadcasting'

(Saturday, December 9, 1922, shortly after midnight EST) — The American radio station WJZ in Newark, New Jersey, (now WABC-AM in New York City) today became the first broadcasting station confirmed to have been heard in Europe.

With the benefit of an increase in the wattage of the broadcast signal, listeners overseas were able to hear the Star-Spangled Banner, followed by a voice saying WJZ repeatedly, then a greeting from the British consul-general in New York to British listeners.

Afterward, at 12:30 in the morning, Vaughn De Leath sang her new hit, “Oliver Twist”, commissioned to be played on a phonograph in theaters showing the newly-released silent film of the same name.

Then a jazz orchestra called “Black and White Boys” played “God Save the King” and a person read aloud the 23rd Psalm from the King James Version of the Bible.