Guglielmo Marconi, the debatable inventor of radio, was born near Bologna, Italy on April 2, 1874. His father, Giuseppe Marconi was a landowner and his mother Annie Jameson was the granddaughter of the founder of the Jameson distillery.

Marconi studied under Augusto Righi in his lab in Bologna. Later, he studied at the Instituto Cavallero in Florence. In his younger years, he showed little academic aptitude. He did however, always have an interest in science, specifically electricity. In 1888, Heinrich Hertz demonstrated the existence, transmission, and detection of radio waves. This intrigued Marconi, who was determined to create commercially useful wireless telegraphy, or radio.

He began working on his project in his attic in Pontecchio, Italy. He built all of his own equipment and transmitted the first signal in 1895. The signal travelled 1.5 kilometers. In 1896, Marconi went to England with his mother seeking support for his work. The chief electrical engineer for the British Post Office, William Preece, showed interest in Marconi’s research. He helped Marconi do demonstrations for the British government. In 1897, he sent the first radio signal over water from South Wales to Flat Holm Island across the Bristol Channel.

In 1899, the New York Herald invited Marconi to broadcast the America’s Cup yacht race in New Jersey. This was his first demonstration in the United States. In 1901, he made a transmission across the Atlantic Ocean from Ireland to Newfoundland. This was supposedly the first transatlantic transmission, but skeptics doubted it actually happened. It was also at this time that Nikola Tesla claimed that Marconi was using his patented inventions to create his radio.

In 1907, Marconi’s company began the first regular radio transmissions across the Atlantic. It still took many years, however, for it to become a reliable means of communication. Marconi’s work was controversial because many people claimed it had been done before. His leading challenger was always Nikola Tesla. Marconi received a patent in 1900 for his “four circuit” design, which was supposedly unique. It was challenged several times in different countries. The U. S. Supreme Court ultimately overturned his patents. He did however receive many honors for his work, including the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1909.

In his later years, Marconi became an Italian Senator and a member of the Italian Fascist Party. He married Beatrice O’Brien in 1905 and they divorced in 1924. He then married Maria Cristina Bezzi-Scali in 1927. Marconi died in 1937 in Rome after several heart attacks.

Image: 1908 image of Guglielmo Marconi.