The idea of using radio or wireless to broadcast to audiences was formed in 1916 by a president of the American Marconi Company, David Sarnoff. His superiors were doubtful about his idea to “make radio a household cause, so that by purchase of a ‘radio music box’, the audience could enjoy lectures, music performance, etc.”

Four years later the American engineer Frank Conrad, an employee at W E Corp, attracted considerable attention when a local newspaper reported on the growing audience listening on crystal radio sets to his evening and weekend amateur broadcasts. A local music store had provided records to play on the Victoria, and Conrad and his family served as disc jockeys(唱片音乐播音员). Westinghouse vice president Harry Davis asked Conrad to build a more powerful transmitter(发射台)in time to announce the outcome of the next US presidential election. Conrad completed his assignment, and on November 2, 1920, station KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, broadcast the announcement that Warren G. Harding had been elected president. About 1000 people heard this first news broadcast.

Radio communicated news much faster than did newspapers, and because crystal sets were easy to build and inexpensive, radio expanded rapidly in the following years. To stimulate the sale of radio sets, equipment manufactures provided transmitting facilities. Singers, comedians, and entire orchestras volunteered their services for publicity. The eventual financial basis of the new industry, however, was still unclear. One group in New York City tried to seek contributions from listeners while others urged that private foundations support radio stations as a public service. In August 1922 the first commercial radio advertisement was broadcast on WEAF (now WNBC) in New York City. In 1926, when about 5 million homes had radios, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), in cooperation with the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, established the first commercial radio network. In the 1920s radio was established as a new mass medium had a practicable industry, and it became a national forum(论坛)for news and popular culture.

A new exhibition in Paris aims to show how England in the middle ages was very much part of Europe’s dynamic art, architectural, trade and culture scene between AD1000 and AD1500.

Organizers said the event would discredit the “popular perception” – mainly across the Channel – that medieval England was “primitive and barbaric”, while France and parts of Europe enjoyed a gothic zenith.

James Robinson, the exhibition curator, said there had been a “reassessment” of England’s contribution to European art in the middle ages over the past half a century. “I’d like to blow apart the popular perception that the middle ages were all about pestilence(plague), the Black Death and religious repression, and demonstrate the artistic and technical excellence that was evident ,” he said. “When you look at the art works in this exhibition you will see some of the true masterpieces of the age.”

Unfortunately, while France and other European countries largely preserved their medieval treasures, England’s artistic heritage was “systematically and ruthlessly decimated” by the 16th -century Reformation and the revolution led by Oliver Cromwell in the 1640s. The English Reformation , after Henry VIII wrested the Church of England away from the authority of the Catholic church in Rome, saw the king’s chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, close down the monasteries, confiscating their riches and in many cases dismantling the buildings.“All things of value were spoiled, plucked away or utterly defaced…and it seemed every person was intent upon filching and spoiling what he could, ” wrote Michael Sherbrook, the 16th-century rector of Wickersley near Roche Abbey in South Yorkshire .

Among the exhibits at the Paris exhibition that opens on Friday are rare treasures that escaped the 16th- and 17th -century pillage and destruction, including the Gloucester Candlestick, the Becket Casket, the Clare Chasuble, the Luck of Edenhall and the Syon Cope. Marie Lavandier, the president of France’s National Monuments Centre, said:“The exhibition highlights the extraordinary richness of the artistic exchanges that united England with continental Europe. At this moment when we are interrogating ourselves about our relationship with Europe, what the exhibition is also demonstrating is that we have always been closely tied to it in terms of commerce and diplomatic relationships.”

Scholars have long debated how and when the Renaissance began. One thing, however, that most scholars agree upon is the significance of this historical period as an evolutionary movement toward individualism in art and thought. Although there is no historical agreement on the exact time order of events leading to the Renaissance, many historians agree that visionaries of the fifteenth century had a sense of belonging to a movement far greater than themselves and so far-reaching as to supersede the artistic and literary forms of the classical era. This phenomenon produced the Renaissance, a period when art, literature, language, and philosophy found new and extraordinary interpretations in the hands of the Humanists. Humanists believed in the importance of the humanities or “human letters”. Eventually, intellectuals of this period became aware of man’s inner potential.

The fourteenth century Italian poet Petrarch characterized the early stage of this movement as the New Age. In fact, it was his term, “Rinascita”, which comes from the Latin “renasci”, to be reborn, that eventually led to the term Renaissance that we use today.

Petrarch believed that the end of classical antiquity and the beginning of a thousand years of darkness, which he characterized as “the Dark Ages”, came with the destruction of the Roman Empire by invasions in 476 A.D. The awakening from this period was a time of rebirth, which he distinguished as the New Age. Petrarch’s view limited the Rinascita to the comeback of Latin and Greek classics from antiquity based on translations of ancient text. Most significant was his belief that the pagans (异教徒) of antiquity were much inspired by the pursuit of arts and literature in an effort to reach the highest potential of perfection on earth. This belief led to a new sense of individualism and enlightenment that characterized the age of the Renaissance as one that was against the old beliefs that man’s earthly life was merely a function of the social order. From the fourteenth century through the early seventeenth century, this new individualism grew steadily in Western European culture with a motivation fed by man’s desire to define and evaluate the essential values between men of antiquity and the emerging modern man.

Not only did artists and writers turn to classical culture for inspiration, they set new goals. They explored the relationship between ancient cultures and their own cultures, and by doing so, they discovered a new vision of human life, of man as a glorious creature capable of developing his mind and body to reach his fullest potential toward perfection.