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Guglielmo Marconi
Radio head
Have I done the world good, or have I created a menace?Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi (1874–1937) was born in Bologna, the second son of aristocrat Giuseppe Marconi and his Irish wife, Annie Jameson, granddaughter of the founder of Jameson Whiskey. At Villa Griffone, the parental estate in Pontecchio, young Marconi studied with his neighbour, the physicist Augusto Righi, and became fascinated with electricity and especially the research Heinrich Hertz had done with electro-magnetic 'Hertzian' or radio waves.
He carried out his first experiments at age 20 in the attic, and eventually succeeded in sending a transmission a mile and a half over a hill. Realizing the potential of his discovery and in need of more funding, he wrote to the Italian minister of Post and Telegraphs about the new wireless (the minister thought he was insane and never replied).
Image by Public Domain