Guglielmo Marconi was born in Bologna, Italy. He was an electrical engineer who, in 1890, became interested in wireless telegraphy. He invented a device which could convert radio waves into electrical signals and succeeded in sending a wireless signal over a distance of one and a half kilometers.

Marconi moved to London and set up Marconi's Wireless Company Limited. In 1896 Queen Victoria sent a radio message from London to her husband, Prince Albert, who was aboard the Royal Yacht. By 1898 Marconi had sent radio signals across the Channel, by 1901 from Cornwall to Newfoundland and, by 1918, to Australia. The 'wireless' system was adopted by both the British and the Italian navies. During World War I, Marconi developed short wave transmittions to allow secret messages to be sent.

Marconi was presented with the Nobel Prize for physics in 1909. After the war he was chosen as the Italian delegate to the Versailles Peace Conference. From 1921 onwards he lived on his yacht, Elettra, where he continued to experiment with different types of radio signals.

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