Inventions & Discoveries · Communication and computing

Radio

1895 · 19th century · Also known as wireless telegraphy

Radio is communication by electromagnetic waves sent through the air; after Heinrich Hertz showed in experiments published between 1886 and 1888 that such waves could be transmitted, the Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi was field testing a wireless system by August 1895 and applied for a British patent in 1896. It was first used for 'wireless telegraphy' in Morse code, and on 12 December 1901 Marconi sent a message across the Atlantic. Audio transmission followed in the early 1900s, and by 1919–1920 regular entertainment broadcasts were heard in The Hague, Buenos Aires and Detroit.

Radio
Image: Unknown author · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

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First known
1895
Credited to
Guglielmo Marconi

NoteHeinrich Hertz had sent radio waves through the air in 1886–1888, and Alexander Popov and Jagadish Chandra Bose demonstrated receivers in 1895.

Built onElectrical telegraph1816Electromagnetic induction1831
Led toTelevision1909Mobile phone1973

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See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Radio. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/radio
MLA
“Radio.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/radio. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Radio.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/radio.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Radio’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/radio (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻