Live television crosses the country for the first time, carrying a peace conference into American homes

San Francisco filled with delegates from 51 nations on September 4, 1951, ahead of the conference that would settle Japan's postwar status. That same day, engineers achieved something new: a live television signal sent from the West Coast and received, in real time, on the East Coast. Americans who had only known television as a local or regional medium watched a diplomatic gathering unfold thousands of miles away as it happened. The peace treaty itself was still four days off, but the country had just watched its first transcontinental broadcast…