| 1590 | England, Europe | The first regular newspaper, the Mercurius Gallobelgicus is printed in London, England, carrying reports of news from continental Europe. |
| 11 June 1645 | North America | The first news publication in the American colonies is a seven-page pamphlet printed at Cambridge, Massachusetts. |
| 1709 | UK, North America | William Warren sets up the first scheduled mail service between Britain and North America. |
| 1793 | France | French inventor Claude Chappe originates semaphore and builds a long-distance signalling system in France. |
| 1837 | USA | The US financier Alfred Lewis Vail devises ‘Morse Code’ for use with the telegraph system designed by US artist and inventor Samuel Finley Breese Morse, using dots and dashes to represent letters and numbers. |
| 24 May 1844 | USA | The first public telegraph line is strung 60 km/37 mi between Washington, DC, and Baltimore, Maryland. The first message is transmitted by US artist and inventor Samuel Finley Breese Morse who asks ‘What hath God wrought?’ |
| 1861 | USA | A telegraph wire is strung across the USA between New York City and San Francisco, California; it follows the route of the pony express which it now makes redundant. |
| 1865 | USA | US financier Cyrus West Field and Scottish physicist William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, use Isambard Kingdom Brunel's steamship the Great Eastern to begin laying the first successful transatlantic telegraph cable. |
| 1887 | Germany | German immigrant Emile Berliner patents his gramophone, a machine which plays discs, in the USA. Commercial production begins in Germany in 1889 and in the USA in 1894. |
| 3 November 1896 | UK | The world's first permanent wireless installation is set up at The Needles on the Isle of Wight, Hampshire, England, by the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co. Ltd. |
| 1907 | USA, Ireland, United Kingdom | A wireless telegraphy service is established between the USA and Ireland. |
| 1908 | | The Morse code for SOS is formally introduced as the international distress signal - three dashes, three dots, and three dashes. |
| 1937 | UK | The British Institute of Public Opinion is founded by George Gallup to introduce his polling method from the USA into Britain. |
| 1945 | UK | The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) extends its range of radio programmes with the establishment of the Home Service and the Light Programme. |
| 1950 | USA | Millionaire US industrialist, aviator, and film producer Howard Hughes becomes a recluse. |
| 1 July 1963 | USA | The US postal service introduces five-digit Zone Improvement Plan (ZIP) codes for addresses. |
| 1964 | USA | Xerox develops the first office facsimile transmission system (later called the fax machine) in the USA. It can only operate on dedicated phone lines. |
| 1965 | Japan | The Japanese electronic company Sony launches the Sony CV-2000, the first home video recorder, using Sony's Betamax format. The first colour video recorder is available the following year. |
| 1965 | UK | The pornographic magazine Penthouse is launched in Britain by Robert Guccione. |
| 29 November 1965 | UK | Mary Whitehouse founds the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association in Britain to campaign against offensive and immoral broadcasting. |
| 1966 | USA | Xerox develops the first desk-top fax machine, in the USA. It is able to operate on standard phone lines and takes 6 minutes to transmit a page. |
| 1968 | USA | The 911 emergency telephone system for police, fire, and ambulances is introduced in New York City. It is the first such system in the USA. |
| 29 July 1981 | UK | Charles, Prince of Wales, marries Lady Diana Spencer in St Paul's Cathedral in London, England. Television coverage attracts 39 million people, the largest British audience to date. |
| 1982 | USA | The US pop singer Madonna is one of the first stars launched by the MTV music channel, highlighting her dancing and the quality of her video production, and she becomes a pop icon of the 1980s. |
| 17 January 1984 | USA | Home video-taping is ruled legal by the US Supreme Court. |
| July 1990 | Japan | Japanese electronics manufacturer Sony launches the Data Discman, an electronic book player that runs 8.8-cm/3.5-in disks, capable of storing up to 2,500 pages of text. |
| 1991 | USA, Netherlands | The Dutch electronics company Philips launches the Compact Disc Interactive (CD-I) in the USA, a multimedia technology that is viewed using a special player on a television set. |
| 1992 | UK | Orbitel Mobile Communications markets the first digital phone in Britain. |
| 1992 | Japan, Netherlands | The electronics companies Matsushita and Philips launch the Digital Compact Cassette. |
| 7 September 1992 | UK | A radio station dedicated to playing classical music, Classic FM, is launched in Britain. It is the first national commercial radio station based on the mainland. |
| November 1992 | UK | The Japanese electronics company Sony launches the Mini Disc in Britain. It is 6.4 cm/2.5 in in diameter, and holds 74 minutes of music. |
| 1993 | USA | Personal digital assistants, the Amstrad PenPad and the Apple Newton MessagePad, are launched. These are electronic personal organizers with the facility to convert handwriting to typed text. |
| 1994 | UK | British Telecom starts trials of a dial-a-video facility, which supplies films down telephone lines to homes. |
| June 1994 | Netherlands, Japan | The Dutch electronics company Philips launches films on DVD (digital versatile disk), using technology developed jointly by Philips and Japanese electronics company Sony. |
