Nobel Prize Recipient, Inventor, Scientist. He received worldwide acclaim as an Italian inventor and engineer who developed, demonstrated, and marketed the first successful long-distance wireless telegraph. In 1901, he broadcast the first transatlantic radio signal, ending the isolation of ocean travel thus saving hundreds of lives in the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic. "For their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy" he and German Professor Ferndinand Braun shared the 1909 Nobel Prize for Physics. He was educated in Bologna and Florence, Italy, before entering technical school at Leghorn. He studied physics, investigating the electromagnetic wave technique and the mathematical formulas and experiments of earlier scientists. By 1894, he was experimenting at his father's estate near Bologna using a crude apparatus consisting of an induction coil for increasing voltages, with a spark discharger controlled by a Morse key at the sending end and a coherer (a primitive form of radio signal detector) at the receiver. At first, the wave traveled only a short distance, but after some experimenting, the distance increased to one and one-half mile. Unable to receive monetary support in Italy, he took his experiments to London, England, in 1896. With the assistance of Sir William Henry Preece, an engineer, he was able to file his first patent in England in June of 1896. He gave successful demonstrations, while Preece gave lectures. The distance of the signal wave increased to nine miles and, in another year, to eleven miles. He was being recognized in Europe and elsewhere in the world for his findings. His cousin and another engineer, financed his patent and help form what would become, in 1900, the Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company, Ltd. During the first years, he was devoted to demonstrating the full possibilities of radiotelegraphy. In 1899, a giant step was taken when a wireless station was established at South Foreland, England, for communicating with Wimereux, France, a distance of 31 miles. The same year, British ships exchanged messages at 75 miles. In September of 1899, he equipped two American ships to report to New York City newspapers the progress of the America's Cup yacht race. At that point, the American Marconi Company was established. In 1900, he filed for his famous patent No. 7777 for Improvements in the Apparatus for the Wireless Telegraphy. The patent, which was based on the earlier work of Sir Oliver Lodge, enable several stations to operate on different wavelengths. The United States Supreme Court overturned patent No. 7777 in 1943, stating that Lodge along with two other pioneers of the radio invention, Nikola Tesla and John Stone, had developed the radio-tuning apparatus at least two years earlier than Marconi. By December of 1901, his radio wave had traveled successfully across the Atlantic Ocean. This followed with other patents, as he advanced his experiments and application of Marconi's Law, which is the relation between the height of antennas and maximum signaling distance of radio transmissions. By 1910, he received messages from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Ireland, a distance of 6,000 miles. He worked with Great Britain during World War I with their radio equipment. After the war in 1919, he was a delegate to the peace conference in Paris, France, and signed the peace treaties with Austria and Bulgaria. He had a yacht that was equipped with advanced radio equipment. In 1928, he was elected to the Italian Senate and chosen President of the Royal Italian Academy in 1930. The airport in his hometown of Bologna was named in his honor. Although many scientists experimented with the pioneering workings of the radio, history gives the credit of developing the radio to Marconi.