A radio signal across the ocean

On this day in 1901, on a hill in Newfoundland, Guglielmo Marconi held an earpiece to his ear, connected to a long wire lifted into the sky by a kite. He reported hearing three faint clicks, the letter S in Morse code, sent by radio all the way across the Atlantic Ocean from England.

Why it mattered

Some people doubted he'd really heard it. Within a few months, though, he showed clearly that radio signals could cross an ocean, and the world began talking without wires.