The history of radio

Twenty years after the telephone was invented and music was first sent down a telephone line, Guglielmo Marconi sent radio signals.

Marconi (1874-1937) was born in Italy and studied at the University of Bologna. He was fascinated by Heinrich Hertz’s earlier discovery of radio waves and realized that it can be used for sending and receiving telegraph messages, referring to it as “wireless telegraphs.”

Marconi’s first radio transmissions, in 1896, were coded signals that were transmitted only about a mile (1,6 km) far. Marconi realized that it held huge potential. He offered the invention to the Italian government but they turned it down. He moved to England, took out a patent, and experimented further. In 1898 Marconi flashed the results of the Kingstown Regatta to the offices of a Dublin newspaper, thus making a sports event the first “public” broadcast.

The next year Marconi opened the first radio factory in Chelmsford, Essex and established a radio link between Britain and France. A link with the USA was established in 1901. In 1909 Marconi shared the Nobel prize in physics for his wireless telegraph. Marconi became a wealthy man.