Marconi's Transatlantic Wireless Signal
- Date
- 12 December 1901
- Category
- Science, technology & invention
- Region
- North Atlantic (Britain-Newfoundland)
- Era
- Modern
- Significance
On 12 December 1901 the Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi reported receiving the first wireless signal transmitted across the Atlantic Ocean.
A high-power transmitting station at Poldhu in Cornwall, England, sent the Morse-code letter "S" some 2,200 miles to a temporary receiving station at Signal Hill, St. John's, Newfoundland, where Marconi and his assistant George Kemp listened through a telephone earpiece, the antenna held aloft by a kite. Although no automatic record was made and the claim was later questioned by some historians, the experiment showed that radio waves could travel far beyond the horizon, refracted and reflected by the upper atmosphere, contradicting expectations that they travelled only in straight lines. Marconi's work, building on the theoretical predictions of Maxwell and the experiments of Hertz, gave communication a wholly new global dimension, freed from wires and cables. Wireless telegraphy rapidly proved its value for ship-to-shore and ship-to-ship communication, dramatised by its role in maritime rescues, and laid the foundation for twentieth-century radio broadcasting and modern wireless telecommunications. Marconi shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions.
One piece of history in your inbox, weekly
New empires, events and features as they land — one good email a week. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Empires active in 12 December 1901
- French Colonial Empire (Second)1830 CE – 1962 CE
- Empire of Japan1868 CE – 1947 CE
- German Empire1871 CE – 1918 CE
- Russian Empire1721 CE – 1917 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- Qing Dynasty1636 CE – 1912 CE
Related science, technology & invention events
- The Wright Brothers' Powered Flight17 December 1903
- Discovery of X-rays and radioactivity1895–1898
- Haber-Bosch Process Industrialises Synthetic Nitrogen FertiliserSeptember 1913
- Germ Theory of Disease Established by Pasteur and Koch1882 (Koch's tuberculosis bacillus, 24 March)
- Edison's Electric Light and Central Power1879 (Pearl Street 1882)
- Formulation of quantum mechanics1925–1927
Further reading
The wider story
A Little History of Science
Warm, jargon-free tour of discovery from Babylonian stargazers to the genome.
Get it on Amazon →As an Amazon Associate, Human Saga earns from qualifying purchases.