July 23, 1962 - The program beamed from America to Europe today by way of the Telstar satellite came through almost perfectly on British television sets. There were a few split-second cracks in the picture and sound, but they did not interrupt the program. After a slightly blurred image of the Statue of Liberty, shots of the New York skyline appeared with perfect clarity. Both the BBC and independent television carried the broadcast. Shots of a baseball game in Chicago between the Cubs and the Phillies were crisply outlined. The sunshine at Wrigley Field in Chicago, where it was 3:05 p.m., looked strange in the evening shadows of London, where it was five hours later. After what looked like a hard-hit single to right field, the announcer apologized in a broad American accent: “We realize all this doesn’t make much sense to you folks in Europe.” President Kennedy’s press conference was also transmitted in the trans-Atlantic broadcast.
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