Radio Day (Russian: День радио Den' Radio), Communications Workers' Day (as it is officially known in Russia) or Radio and Television Day (Ден на радиото и телевизията, as it is known in Bulgaria) is a commemoration of the development of radio in Russia. It takes place on May 7, the day in 1895 on which Alexander Popov successfully demonstrated his invention.
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In 1895, Popov gave the first public demonstration of radio as a tool before the Russian Physical and Chemical Society in St. Petersburg, using Sir Oliver Lodge's coherer as a lightning detector.
Popov has generally been recognized in Eastern Europe as an "inventor of radio", in contrast to the West's recognition of Tesla and, historically, Marconi. Popov's work on the emission and reception of signals by means of electromagnetic oscillations built upon Tesla's accomplishments demonstrated in 1893. Marconi received a patent for radio in 1896, but his apparatus was based on various earlier techniques of other researchers (primarily Tesla) and resembled instruments demonstrated by others (including Popov).
Radio Day was first observed in the Soviet Union in 1945, on the 50th anniversary of Popov's experiment, and some four decades after his death. Radio Day is officially marked in Russia and Bulgaria.
In 2009, an association for commercial radio stations in Malaysia, Commercial Radio Malaysia (CRM) chose to launch Malaysia Radio Day on September 9 to mark the once-in-a-lifetime date in the history of commercial radio.
September 29th, 2011, UNESCO's Executive Board approved item 13 of its provisional agenda "Proclamation of a World Radio Day"
Following a request from the Academia Española de la Radio, on 20 September 2010 Spain proposed that the UNESCO Executive Board include an agenda item on the proclamation of a World Radio Day. The Executive's decision is as follows:
Recommends to the UNESCO General Conference that it proclaim a World Radio Day and that this Day be celebrated on 13 February, the day the United Nations established the concept of United Nations Radio;Invites all Member States, organizations of the United Nations system and other international and regional organizations, professional associations and broadcasting unions, as well as civil society, including non-governmental organizations and individuals, to duly celebrate the World Radio Day, in the way that each considers most adequate;
Requests the Director-General, subject to the final resolution of the General Conference, to bring this resolution to the attention of the Secretary-General of the United Nations so that World Radio Day may be endorsed by the General Assembly.
Read UNESCO's full World Radio Day proclamation here(PDF).