Chicago News Bench
reminded me that today is the centennial anniversary of the first transatlantic radio transmission. Italian scientist Guglielmo Marconi sent the Morse code signal for the letter "S" from Newfoundland to England on December 12, 1901.
In his book
Thunderstruck,
Erik Larson not only recounts the story of the use of wireless communication in the capture London murderer
Hawley Harvey Crippen in 1910, but he goes into great depth about Marconi's pursuit of creating a practical method for radio transmission.
But as CNB notes, Serbian inventor Nicholas Tesla eventually won a patent dispute he had with Marconi, but not until 1943, after both men had died.
Larson makes a case for Englishman
Oliver Lodge as the father of wireless, but also states that he had an unfocused scientific mind, which included attempts at communicating with the dead.
CORRECTION: It's actually the 109th anniversary of the transmission. My brain must have overloaded last night while I was counting snowflakes.
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