First Transatlantic Radio Signal

December 12, 1901:

 Guglielmo Marconi receives the first transatlantic radio signal at Signal Hill in St John's, Newfoundland.

Guglielmo Marconi; 25 April 1874– 20 July 1937) was an Italian inventor, known as the father of long distance radio transmission and for his development of Marconi's law and a radio telegraph system. Marconi is often credited as the inventor of radio, and indeed he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand Braun "in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy". Much of Marconi's work in radio transmission was built upon previous experimentation and the commercial exploitation of ideas by others such as Hertz, Maxwell, Faraday, Popov, Lodge, Fessenden, Stone, Bose, and Tesla. As an entrepreneur, businessman, and founder of the The Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company in 1897, Marconi was more successful than any other because of his ability to commercialize radio and its associated equipment.

Marconi was born in Bologna on April 25, 1874, the second son of Giuseppe Marconi, an Italian landowner, and his Irish wife, Annie Jameson, daughter of Andrew Jameson of Daphne Castle in the County Wexford, Ireland and granddaughter of John Jameson, founder of whiskey distillers Jameson & Sons.

I find the fact that he is a descendent of John Jameson to be interesting.  As for his developments, the phrase, "Standing on the shoulders of giants" seems applicable.