Ben Blank, who in the 1950s introduced the idea of using on-screen graphics behind television broadcasters to liven up newscasts, died of complications from a stroke at his Teaneck, N.J., home at age 87, the New York Times reports. Blank, a former cartoonist, first used such graphics for CBS in 1956 and likely used the first example of electronic animation the following year for a story on the Sputnik satellite, the newspaper says.
—Danny King