Marconi's Wireless Patent
Next: June 2, 2027
The patent that put messages on air.
The story
Where it comes from
On 2 June 1896 the 22-year-old Guglielmo Marconi filed British patent application No. 12,039, 'Improvements in Transmitting Electrical Impulses and Signals, and in Apparatus therefor', and this Story marks the anniversary. Born in Bologna, he had already sent wireless signals across his father's estate before bringing his apparatus to England. The application described sending signals through the air, earth or water with high-frequency electric oscillations, using a spark transmitter and a sensitive tube of metal filings as the receiver. Granted on 2 July 1897, it was the world's first patent for a system of wireless telegraphy.
How it's celebrated
There is no organised observance, but the day is a good excuse to think about how far a message can travel. Listen to a radio station from far away, send someone a message and picture it crossing the air, or read about the coherer, the little glass tube of filings that turned an invisible spark into a click.
Did you know
- Marconi signed the application from a London address, 71 Hereford Road in Bayswater.
- Weeks after the patent was granted, in July 1897, he formed the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company, renamed Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company in 1900.
- In December 1901 he sent the first wireless signals across the Atlantic, from Poldhu in Cornwall to St John's, Newfoundland, and in 1909 he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Braun.
Coming up next
- World Bicycle Day · June 3, 2027
- The First Montgolfier Balloon · June 4, 2027
- World Environment Day · June 5, 2027
- Awal Muharram · June 6, 2027
- Russian Language Day · June 6, 2027
- World Food Safety Day · June 7, 2027