Today there are no obvious external indications of this famous resident, nor of his exceptional achievements, awards and numerous patents. A hundred years ago at his laboratory, on 13 June 1925, Jenkins gave a demonstration of a televised film sent by radio waves from a building 10km away at what is now the US Naval Research Laboratory in Bellevue, DC.
Top image: Television pioneer Charles Francis Jenkins inspecting his broadcasting apparatus in 1928. Everett Collection Historical
The invited group of mostly government officials included the secretary of the navy, Curtis D Wilbur. They watched with fascination a film that showed a silhouette of a toy windmill with its blades in motion. The television picture comprised 48 lines, refreshed at the silent-movie rate of 16 per second.
The Washington newspaper headlines the following day hailed the demonstration as the "first motion pictures transmitted by radio". Hobbyist magazines reported fervently that "television is here!", calling Jenkins the "father of television".
Today those announcements seem over-enthusiastic. Television as an operational service still had a long way to go to have the quality and range to make consumer devices feasible. All the same, they were right in anticipating where Jenkins' demonstration might lead.