On July 10th, 1962, NASA launched the first Telstar satellite. The spherical satellite—which actually looks like a model of the Death Star—was the first to relay television and telephone signals through space.
In fact, just two days after launch on July 12, 1962, the satellite transmitted a television signal across the Atlantic Ocean from Andover Earth Station in Maine to the Pleumeur-Bodou Telecom Center in Brittany, France. According to the excellent history at Telstar50.org, the first images from the United States were of President John F. Kennedy and the first beamed over from France were of singer Yves Montand, along with clips of sporting events. Telstar 1 was also responsible for the first telephone calls—some 400 of them—sent through space.
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