The BBC opens the world's first regular high-definition television service, broadcasting from Alexandra Palace.

On 2 November 1936, the BBC launched the world's first regular high-definition television service, broadcasting from Alexandra Palace in London. Before this, television had only existed in experimental or irregular forms — earlier BBC trials with John Logie Baird's low-resolution 30-line system had run through the early 1930s, but nothing offered a consistent, high-quality public broadcast. The Alexandra Palace service used a 405-line format, a significant leap in picture clarity for its time, and ran on alternating systems from two competing technologies before settling on the Marconi-EMI standard. The service made television available to a small number of viewers in the London area who owned the still-rare and expensive TV sets. It was suspended in 1939 at the outbreak of World War II, but its 1936 launch is widely regarded as the true birth of regular television broadcasting.