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Radio Operator turned Broadcasting genius!
His mother wanted him to be a Tulmudic Scholar; his father, a merchant. Instead, David sarnoff became the most dynamic foresighted figure in the history of American broadcasting.Two days after he arrived in the United States from Russia in 1900, nine year old David was peddling newspapers. He never stopped working. Early jobs as a radio telegraph operator took him to the Arctic aboard ship, to alonely station on Nantucket Island (where he read a complete technical library), then to a wireless station a top Wanamakers's department store in New york city.There on April 14, 1912, he picked up a faint message: " S.S. Titanic ran into iceberg. Sinking fast". Sarnoff called newspapers and bent every effort to establish radio contact with ships near Titanic. When President Taft ordered all other stations off the air, the 21-year-old radio operator became the nations only link with the scene of the heart rending disaster. Slowly, the names of survivors taken aboard the rescue ship Carpathia began to trickle in. Not until the list was complete did Sarnoff abandon his post. He had been at his Morse Key for 72 hours at a stress!Under Sarnoff's guidance, RCA founded the National Broadcasting Company in 1926 to promote the radio and its programs. A music lover, he broadcast live opera from the stage of the Metropolitan in New York.

Source: Encyclopedia Americana, Vol.2