Who made the first public demonstration of a working television system in 1926?

John Logie Baird made the first public demonstration of a working television system in 1926.

On January 26, 1926, the Scottish inventor demonstrated moving television images in his London laboratory at 22 Frith Street. Members of the Royal Institution and a reporter from The Times saw a live image with light, shade, and detail—an important milestone in television history.

Baird’s system was mechanical rather than electronic. It used a rapidly spinning Nipkow disk, whose holes scanned an image into lines before the signal was reconstructed at the receiving end. His early apparatus was assembled from inexpensive household and workshop materials, including a hatbox and bicycle-light lenses.

The date can cause confusion because Baird had shown moving silhouette images at Selfridges in 1925. That earlier event was a public demonstration of primitive televised silhouettes; the 1926 demonstration is generally credited as the first public demonstration of true television images. Baird later demonstrated color television in 1928.