The Vague Patent? The Way It Was, 20 July

1872: WIRELESS IN THE BLUE RIDGE?---Six years after (he claimed) transmitting signals in the Blue Ridge Mountains, between two points fourteen miles apart and using kites for antennae, Mahlon Loomis receives a wireless technology patent based upon "atmospheric electricity" eliminating the need for existing overhead wiring such as used on telegraph systems. The kicker: Loomis receives the patent without having included diagrams on precisely how this technology might be built or operated.

The Loomis experiment will become part of the technology credited with making radio possible, if not beginning radio outright.

CHANNEL SURFING . . .

1949: CORNELIA---A wealthy man (Ernest Chappell) has no regrets that his wife (Anne Seymour)---who deceived him into turning away from his childhood sweetheart (Peggy Stanley)---is now dead, on tonight's edition of Quiet, Please. (Mutual.)

Allen: Walter Black. Writer/director: Wyllis Cooper.

PREMIERING TODAY . . .

1881---Hugh Sothern (actor: Those We Love), Anderson County, Kansas.
1890---Theda Bara (as Theodosia Burr Goodman; actress: Lux Radio Theater), Cincinnati; Verna Felton (actress: Sealtest Village Store; The Judy Canova Show; mr. ace and JANE), North Hollywood.
1896---Harry Horlick (bandleader: The A & P Gypsies), Tiflis, Russia.
1905---Murray Forbes (actor: Ma Perkins; The Foxes of Flatbush), unknown.
1908---Jerry Desmonde (actor: Crime Classics), Middlesbrough, U.K.
1910---Bill Goodwin (announcer/actor: The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show; Johnny Fletcher), San Francisco.
1919---K.T. Stevens (as Gloria Wood; actress: Junior Miss), Los Angeles.
1938---Natalie Wood (as Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko; actress: Lux Radio Theater), San Francisco.