The invention of television was a cumulative effort by several inventors, but two key figures are most often credited:

1. John Logie Baird, a Scottish engineer, is known as the "Father of Television" for creating the first working mechanical television system in the 1920s. He gave the first public demonstration of televised moving images in 1926 using a mechanical system with spinning discs.
2. Philo Taylor Farnsworth, an American inventor, demonstrated the first fully functional all-electronic television system in 1927. He developed the first all-electronic image pickup device and transmitted the first electronic television images, which is fundamental to modern television technology.

While Baird pioneered mechanical television, Farnsworth is often called the true father of television due to his invention of the all-electronic system that evolved into what we use today. There were also other important contributors like Paul Nipkow, who invented an early mechanical scanning disk, and Vladimir Zworykin, who developed electronic television components. In summary, television was invented through the work of many participants, but the early mechanical system is attributed mainly to John Logie Baird and the fully electronic system to Philo Farnsworth.