The CRT, in its original sense, was a somewhat incredible crossroads in technological history. The combo of higher-vacuum and high-voltage allowed people to start fiddling around with glowy glass tubes in the late 1800s.

In 1895 Röntgen was messing with such a device trying to understand cathode rays when he discovered and published on x-rays (leading to medical diagnostics, x-ray diffraction, understanding of ionic bonds and modern chemistry, and the discovery that DNA had a double-helical structure).

This caused much excitement. Soonafter Becquerel was looking into x-rays in CRTs when he discovered natural radiation (leading directly to the field of nuclear physics, nuclear medicine, nuclear weapons, and nuclear power plants).

In 1897, J.J. Thompson discovered (using a CRT) that those very cathode rays were actually new particles known as electrons (leading to the photoelectric effect, general relativity, quantum physics, solar panels).

Right after that, people turned the CRT into the vacuum tube (leading to long-distance telephone networks, radio amplifiers, the electric guitar, the Beatles, Katy Perry).

And then of course if you stick some electromagnets around the CRT beam you can shake them around and draw out moving pictures, and you get the CRT we all know and love (and is written about in OP article).

I blogged about it a bit here [1]

[1] https://partofthething.com/thoughts/the-modern-era-passed-th...