This article was written by my colleague NRTC Managed Services Admin
The year is 1894. Over 3,000 Pullman Car Company workers lead one of the world’s biggest strikes to date. The International Olympic Committee is founded in Paris. And you can finally buy Coca Cola in a bottle for the first time! But most importantly, on May 10th of this year, physicist Guglielmo Marconi set in motion the technology upon which all current wireless technologies are built.
On this day, 20-year-old Marconi transmitted a radio wave ¾ of a mile without the use of wires. Over the next few years, he would send signals across his family’s property, then over small bodies of water, and finally over the Bristol Channel. The adorable message that was sent and received over 8.7 miles was “Let it be so.”
Although it would take Marconi another three years to successfully deliver “ship to shore” communications—over 12 miles of ocean—the sending of a radio wave ¾ a mile was truly the beginning for all communication we rely upon today.