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Marconi's radio patent, 1897. Italian engineer, physicist and inventor Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937) had developed his first radio equipment by the age of 21. He patented his radio system and established the Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company in London in 1897. In 1899 he made the first transmission across the English Channel and, in 1901, the first trans-Atlantic transmission. In 1909 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. He later developed short-wave radio and established a global radio telegraph network. This is patent number 586,193 from the US Patent Office, dated 13 July 1897. (KEYSTONE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/US NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY)