Although television technology had been present throughout the 1930s, with competing systems developed by RCA scientist Vladimir K. Zworykin and inventor Philo Farnsworth, the public was for the most part unaware of television, except as a convention in science fiction. Experimental on-air broadcasts of television were conducted during the decade, but the real public debut of television took place 30 April 1939 at the New York World's Fair. The fair's theme was "The World of Tomorrow," and television was just one of the marvels, along with nylon stockings and a cigarette-smoking robot named Elektro. To great public acclaim and much publicity, RCA chairman David Sarnoff opened the fair by addressing the public through television, as did President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who became the first president to appear on television. Sarnoff also took advantage of the fair to display RCA's first television receivers, bulky models...