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Summaries · Grade 4 History › The radio, the television and the camera
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The radio, the television and the camera

The radio, the television and the camera: inventors, advantages and disadvantages, and how they changed. Read one part at a time and tap “I know this”. Then test yourself in the quiz.

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Radio and television

AdvantageDisadvantage
RadioNews at once; you need not readYou cannot see what is happening
TelevisionLearn by seeing places and animals; live broadcastsChildren move less and read less

The first radios were big and heavy because of large glass tubes. A wind-up radio was made in Cape Town in the 1990s and works without batteries or power. Families listened together to news and stories in the evenings. The remote control made TV easier; today many watch on cellphones and tablets. South Africa only got television in January 1976, much later than most countries; at first there was one channel, in the evenings only.

The radio, the television and the camera.
The radio, the television and the camera.
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The camera

  • A camera obscura is a dark room that shows a picture through a hole.
  • Early portraits took long: people had to sit perfectly still.
  • Old photos are good sources: they show how people and places looked. Families can keep memories forever.
  • The oldest photograph that still exists was made by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in France in about 1826; the camera had to stay open for many hours.
  • In 1888 George Eastman’s Kodak camera used a roll of film, so ordinary people could take photos. Digital cameras became common in the 1990s and 2000s.
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Remember this and test yourself

Remember this: your summary
  • Marconi is the “father of the radio”; it was first called the “wireless”, because signals travel through the air as radio waves.
  • The SABC was founded in 1936; farmers far from towns heard the weather report at once.
  • John Logie Baird showed one of the first televisions in 1926: blurry black-and-white moving pictures, at first without sound.
  • Old camera: the film first had to be developed; digital camera: photos are stored as files.
  • Cameras: camera obscura → film camera → cellphone camera.

Write these points in your book. Read them again the night before the test.

Memory trick

Radio = ears, TV = eyes and ears, camera = eyes that remember.

Flash cards · Tap to turn over

Important words

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Test yourself · Part 2

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