Looking back: KDKA [radio station]

At 8:00 p.m., 2 November 1920, KDKA of East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania began broadcasting the Harding-Cox presidential election returns. With a power output of 100 watts, the transmitter's signals reached homes several hundred miles from the world's first commercial radio station. Its great success led its owner, the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, to increase its power output by 10-fold within one year. By the end of 1923, KDKA was heard regularly all over the United States as well as some parts of Europe, South America and the Hawaiian Islands.