When I was doing Italian Heritage month and striving to write about one a month, I was going to close with Marconi who was probably the most influential Italians in the 20th Century. Next year though. I still remember most of the stuff I covered about him in a term paper at Marquette.
But today, his UK-based corporation British Marconi transmitted the letter “S” in Morse Code successfully from Cornwall, UK to Newfoundland, Canada. (I guess they didn’t quite have the voice-element to radio down yet.) This was quite a distance and incredible. Sure there were underwater cables already in place for voice and telegraphs (the British could tap most messages going to North America, it’s how they exaggerated the Zimmerman between Germany and Mexico). However, being freed of cables/wires was a huge leap forward because most international travel went by ship; it may have been too late for The Titantic 11 years later yet nearby vessels were made aware of the liner’s plight so they rush to offer some aid. Legend has it David Sarnoff, the primary founder/brains behind NBC heard the distress call as a kid, manning a listening post.
Back to Marconi’s accomplishment. On this day 110 years ago he was able to offer the British government further proof that his solution to wireless communication worked. Within three decades, radio would be all the rage as a popular form of entertainment and information sharing throughout the world. TV and Wi-Fi would follow respectively. All from three little dots.
Here’s a site in which you can translate words to Morse code.