Marconi's Transatlantic Broadcast
On This Day in History: December 12, 1901
♫ Marconi plays the mamba. Listen to the radio! ♫ Wait, did Starship intend to sing “mambo” instead? A black mamba is a highly venomous snake, and some would rather be bitten by such a creature than listen to that “We Built This City” song again. Anyway, Guglielmo Marconi was the guy who made it possible. Allegedly.
--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: December 12, 1901--
Nikola Tesla’s work and legacy just kept getting fucked over: by Edison, by that space billionaire douche, and also by Marconi. Marconi is credited as the inventor of radio, and the dude was certainly no slouch, but few ponder Tesla’s role in its development.
The Tesla coil was invented by—duh—Tesla, in 1891. It’s an electrical resonant transformer circuit something something. Whatever it is, it was critical to the transmission of radio waves. Tesla was almost ready to start using it to transmit said radio waves a few years later but his lab burnt down. Godfuckingdammit! he might have said. Despite such misfortune Tesla was granted several patents for the technology by the end of the century. And then Marconi, who’d gotten love from the British patent office, tried filing similar patents in the U.S., but the patent office was all nope sorry these rely too much on Tesla’s work. Do something original, ya fuckin’ hack. I won’t even get into how they were both basing their work on the earlier efforts of David Hughes and Heinrich Hertz. Google those guys if you want.
Anyway, Marconi didn’t let that bit of denial stop him. And even though he was thieving the work of others, he was a workhorse and determined to show that this bit of laboratory physics could have useful real-world applications. In 1895 he discovered that increasing the height of an antenna improved the broadcast range, and over the next few years made many demonstrations of his work, including broadcasting across the English Channel in 1899.
A great leap forward for radio came on December 12, 1901, when Marconi used a kite to support a 500-foot-high antenna based in Newfoundland, which wouldn’t be part of Canada for another 48 years, to receive transatlantic broadcasts from England. Again, allegedly. There is some skepticism as to whether he actually pulled it off. Facing down the skeptics he said fine motherfuckers I’ll prove this shit works over such a distance, and he did exactly that one year and five days later.
He began making a lot of money off his inventions. He also came from a powerful Italian family with major financial connections. The cash rolling into Marconi’s company contributed to him eventually getting the U.S. patents he desired. Tesla was pissed. Marconi then went on to win the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1909 and Tesla was so furious he sued Marconi, to no avail. Thirteen years later Marconi became a big fan of Benito Mussolini and joined the Italian Fascist party. Gross. He died in 1937 at the age of 63.
Confession: I like “We Built This City.” Sue me.
Those who cannot remember the past need a history teacher who says “fuck” a lot. Get both volumes of On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down. They make great gifts, and ‘tis the fuckin’ season!
And don’t forget to
Another great article, James!
I have a love-hate relationship with "We Built This City." I hate it because it was so overplayed but I like it because, whenever I hear it, I bop along with it. My husband, on the other hand, acts like his balls have retracted as soon as he hears those first few notes. He definitely hates it. In turn, that makes me sing along with it even louder, lol!
My father, born in 1921, was childhood friends with Bob Sproul, whose father was president of University of California at Berkeley. He used to tell a story about playing catch with Sproul one day on the lawn of the Sproul home. They had been told that “Marconi was coming to dinner” that night, and at 5 pm or so, a nondescript guy drove up, parked and went inside. “I guess that’s Marconi,” said Bob, and they kept playing catch.
An hour later a motorcade pulled up - sirens going, lights flashing - and a group of bodyguards escorted the great Marconi into the house.
My father preferred the idea of the first Marconi they saw - just a guy showing up in his car, rather than a rah-rah whooptedoodle big deal motorcade delivering a person who was Clearly Important.