Guglielmo Marconi was born into Italian nobility in 1874 Bologna. Up to the age of six he was brought up by his mother in Bedford UK.
In Italy, at a young age Marconi developed an interest in science and electricity, conducting experiments in his attic. He became fascinated with the discovery by German physicist Heinrich Rudolph Hertz of "invisible waves"generated by electromagnetic interactions. Marconi built his own wave generating equipment at the family estate and was soon sending signals to locations a mile away.
After failing to attract interest from the Italian government, in 1896 Marconi at the age of 22, travelled to London and soon found backers, including the British Post Office. Within a year he was transmitting broadcasts of up to 12 miles and had applied for his first patents.
A year later, he set up a wireless station on the Isle of Wight that allowed Queen Victoria to send messages to her son Prince Edward, aboard the Royal Yacht.
By 1899 Marconi's signals had crossed the English Channel and in the same year he travelled to America and earned fame offering wireless coverage of The America's Cup Yacht Race.
In 1909 Guglielmo Marconi shared the Nobel Prize.
As shipping companies realised the usefulness of the radio telegraph for communications, Marconi Company radios became standard equipment. When the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg in 1912 it was Marconi operators that were able to contact the RMS Carpathia, which in turn lead to the rescue of 700 survivors.