Around 1894, the Italian Guglielmo Marconi  (1874 – 1937) became interested in the “electric waves” which German scientist Heinrich Hertz had studied before him.

Marconi built his own equipment and started detecting and sending waves. He sent the first radio signals across his garden in 1896. Then sent waves across the Channel between England and France in 1899. In 1901 Marconi sent the waves across the Atlantic Ocean. Public radio broadcasts began in the 1920s.

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