by Irish-Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi ushered in a new era of global communications, sending the first radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean on this day in history, December 12, 1901.
The message was simply the letter “s” in Morse code (dot-dot-dot). But after years of advances by Marconi it was shown that radio could make the world a smaller place.
The wireless signal traveled 2,000 miles from a transmitting station in Poldhu, Cornwall, in the far southwest of England, to a receiving station in St. John’s, Newfoundland.
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“Today, our world of smartphones, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, satellite TV and radio, global positioning systems, and wireless computer networks was largely imagined by and built on Marconi’s electrical experiments,” he says. the Pioneer Institute, an independent think tank.
“He was the first person to systematically use radio waves to communicate over long distances, developed wireless telegraphy, and is considered the ‘father of radio.'”
Guglielmo Marconi with his wireless electrical appliance.
(Photo by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
Marconi’s invention proved its worth during one of the great disasters in human history.
“His radio set is widely considered to be the reason more than 700 people survived the Titanic disaster in 1912, instead of dying as they probably would have if ships at sea still used homing pigeons to communicate over large distances.” distances,” writes Federal Communications. Commission.
“His radio set is widely considered to be the reason more than 700 people survived the Titanic disaster in 1912.”
A Marconi wireless telegraph machine was installed on the doomed Titanic just weeks before it set sail.
Operators began frantically transmitting distress signals by radio to several nearby, similarly equipped ships at 12:15 a.m. on 15 April.
The last signal from Titanic was received by RMS Carpathia sometime between 2:15 a.m. and 2:25 a.m.
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“Those who have been saved have been saved through one man, Mr Marconi… and his wonderful invention,” British Postmaster General Herbert Samuel said after the disaster.
Survivors of The Rms Titanic in one of her collapsible lifeboats, just before being picked up by The Carpathia. Participation of women in rowing.
(Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
“In an ironic twist, Marconi narrowly avoided traveling on that fatal voyage: he was offered a free ticket to the Titanic, but took the Lusitania three days early,” the BBC reported this year.
Marconi won the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics, sharing the honor with German radio pioneer Ferdinand Braun.
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The first transatlantic transmission of 1901 was simply a major step in Marconi’s years of effort to advance a technology that many scientists doubted.
“In 1895 he began laboratory experiments at his father’s estate in Pontecchio, where he succeeded in sending wireless signals over a distance of one and a half miles,” reports the Nobel Foundation.
Marconi won the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics, sharing the honor with German radio pioneer Ferdinand Braun.
“In the same year, he made a demonstration before the Italian government in Spezia where wireless signals were sent over a distance of twelve miles. In 1899, he established wireless communication between France and England across the English Channel.”
Marconi was born into the Italian and Irish aristocracy.
Bottles of Jameson whiskey for sale inside the Old Distillery, in Midleton, County Cork, Ireland, Thursday, December 29, 2016. Radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi was a great-grandson of James Irish Whiskey founder John Jameson.
(Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
His father, Giuseppe Marconi, was a nobleman from the Bologna area of northern Italy; his mother, Annie Jameson, was the granddaughter of famed distiller John Jameson, founder of Jameson Irish Whiskey.
Marconi, among many claims to fame late in his life, was selected to create Vatican Radio in 1931.
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“Just four days after the creation of Vatican City (in February 1929), Pope Pius XI officially commissioned the famous Italian-born radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi to build the radio station within the new state.” , writes Vatican News in its history of the official media of the state.
A Marconi message (radio message) from the Titanic to the Olympic ship is on display at Bonhams auction house in New York, April 12, 2012. Bonhams held an auction that month called ‘RMS Titanic: 100 Years of Reality and Fiction”, featuring Titanic artifacts, documents related to the sinking of the ship, various Titanic-related memorabilia and movie props.
(EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP via Getty Images)
Marconi introduced the station to the world on February 12, 1931.
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“Speaking in Italian, Marconi said: ‘I have the greatest honor to announce that in a matter of seconds the Supreme Pontiff, Pope Pius XI, will inaugurate the Vatican City State Radio Station. Electric radio waves will carry his words of peace and blessing to the whole world.'”
Vatican News adds: “Pope Pius XI thus became the first pontiff in history to address the world by radio.”
Pope Pius XI (1857-1939), center, at the inauguration of the Vatican radio station, together with the inventor Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937), February 1931, Vatican City.
(Photo by Felici, L’Illustrazione Italiana)
Marconi originally intended to send his first transatlantic radio message from England to a receiving station in Wellfleet, Massachusetts on Cape Cod.
The American station was not ready in time, so the transmission went to Newfoundland.
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“Not long after, Wellfleet station was ready, and on January 18, 1903, Marconi staged another world first (and something of a media event) by successfully relaying messages between the President of the United States and the King of England. “. reports the National Park Service.
The broadcast station, on Marconi Beach in Wellfleet, is now the Cape Cod National Seashore NPS headquarters on high dunes overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
