and later that year was granted the world's first patent for a system of wireless telegraphy. In July 1897, Guglielmo formed The Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company Limited (in 1900 re-named Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company Limited). In 1899, he established wireless communication between France and England across the English Channel. On an historic day in December 1901, determined to prove that wireless waves were not affected by the curvature of the Earth, he used his system for transmitting the first wireless signals across the Atlantic between Poldhu, Cornwall, and St. John's, Newfoundland, a distance of 2100 miles. He was a member of the Italian Government mission to the United States in 1917. Marconi was appointed Italian plenipotentiary delegate to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. He was awarded the Italian Military Medal in recognition of his war service. In 1931, Marconi began research into the propagation characteristics of still shorter waves, resulting in the opening in 1932 of the world's first microwave radiotelephone link between the Vatican City and the Pope's summer residence at Castel Gandolfo. He has been the recipient of honorary doctorates of several universities and many other international honours and awards, among them the Nobel Prize for Physics, which in 1909 he shared with Professor Karl Braun, the Albert Medal of the Royal Society of Arts, the John Fritz Medal and the Kelvin Medal. Marconi died in Rome on July 20, 1937.
(Courtesy of www. nobelprize.org)