105 years ago today, on November 20, 1920 (October 11, 1920 in the lunar calendar), the world's first radio station was born. American radio station KDKA is widely regarded as the world's first true radio station. It was born in Pittsburgh 75 years ago and was the first to broadcast regularly every day at scheduled times. It was the first radio station to receive an experimental license from the federal government. It was quickly recorded in history as it made a series of breakthroughs, such as the first to cover a sports match (a boxing match) and the first to broadcast live stage theatrical performances. KDKA's first broadcast was on November 20, 1920, which was an amazing success. It broadcast the news that Warren Harding beat Jaime Cox to be elected president. People in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia heard the broadcast. All the staff at the station were Westinghouse employees and all volunteers (Westinghouse still owns KDKA radio from then until now). They started broadcasting every night at about 8:00 after the first broadcast. The broadcast included local news, live performances by invited entertainers, and reading stories to bedtime children. The early working conditions at the station were also rather rudimentary. The mother-in-law of Westinghouse retiree Charles Ruh was a violinist on KDKA's early broadcasts and often came to work by minibus. During the first live church broadcast, the station's engineers wore choir robes and carried their equipment to the local church. KDKA's first recording studio was in a cabin on the roof of the eighth-floor Westinghouse building. A tent was set up on the roof for musicians to take a break, but it could not keep the actors from practicing the occasional sound. Sometimes a moth flew into the actor's mouth, forcing him to stop singing. But this glitch did not seem to prevent the number of listeners from growing rapidly, because many radios were made by each company at that time. People thought it was their machine malfunctioning and had to wait for a while until the music started again. Later the station moved indoors and hired a full-time announcer, Harold Allin. His melodious voice attracted many letters from female listeners. In two years, there were 500 radio stations and about 1.50 million radios in the United States, according to Michael Keith, a professor of communications at Boston College and director of the Ministry of Education at the Museum of Broadcasting and Communications in Chicago. Every major American city had its own station. In the early days of radio broadcasting, all stations were assigned to only one of two frequencies. Some stations with overlapping frequencies signed agreements, and each station staggered its broadcast time. Others tried to overwhelm their opponents with stronger signals. This chaos nearly killed the young radio industry. It didn't end until 1927, when the government created the Federal Radio Commission (the predecessor of the Federal Communications Commission). The Federal Radio Commission put order. By this time, the influence of KDKA and other early radio stations had been diminished by the large broadcast networks based in New York, which later grew to dominate the broadcasting industry and eventually founded the television business.