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Poster for Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio

Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio

1991 · Film · documentary · 113 min

Directed by Ken Burns

DocumentaryHistory

For 50 years radio dominated the airwaves and the American consciousness as the first “mass medium.” In Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio, Ken Burns examines the lives of three extraordinary men who shared the primary responsibility for this invention and its early success, and whose genius, friendship, rivalry and enmity interacted in tragic ways. This is the story of Lee de Forest, a clergyman’s flamboyant son, who invented the audion tube; Edwin Howard Armstrong, a brilliant, withdrawn inventor who pioneered FM technology; and David Sarnoff, a hard-driving Russian immigrant who created the most powerful communications company on earth.

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3 comments on Hacker News

  1. PositivetunapNov 26, 2022
  2. PositivetimrichardSep 15, 2019

    Those are great documentaries....

    I also really enjoyed Empire of the Air, covering the history of radio.

  3. PositivetwoodfinJan 17, 2014

    Ken Burns did a terrific documentary on the RCA/Armstrong fight and the birth of radio generally, Empire of the Air.

    http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/empire/