Known as the "father of the wireless," Guglielmo Marconi became interested in electronics as a youth in the late 19th century. He began his wireless telegraphy project by repeating some of Hertz's experiments with a number of improvement. He offered his wireless communication system to the Italian government, which refused it.

Marconi first patented his invention in 1896 in London, then sought backing for it. With improvements patented in 1900 and his experiment in St. John's, Newfoundland, the following year, where he received a radio signal sent from Cornwall, England, his concept was even more certain to gain acceptance. Marconi then moved from radio research into politics, representing Italy at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. He shared the Nobel Prize for physics in 1909.