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The first wireless broadcasts were in the form of Morse code, with messages transmitted in dots and dashes. Then, in 1906, physicist Reginald Fessenden made the first long-distance transmission of voice and music from his station in Brant Rock, Massachusetts. Fessenden’s innovation was to use a high frequency alternator to generate a continuous wave signal that reached Norfolk, Virginia. This transformational moment marked the beginning of radio as we know it today.

The first pocket transistor radio was the Regency model TR-1. Transistors had been developed by Bell Laboratories back in 1948, making smaller, portable radios a possibility. At first, the technology was monopolized by the U.S. military, but in 1954, the first commercial transistor radios came onto the market, making the pocket radio available to anyone who could afford the $50 price tag.

Scottish physicist and mathematician James Clerk Maxwell’s theoretical work on electromagnetism proved essential to the development of radio. In 1864, in his first treatise on electromagnetism, he used mathematical formulas to predict that waves of oscillating electric and magnetic fields travel in space at roughly the speed of light. Maxwell’s theory was later proven by Heinrich Hertz’s discovery of radio waves.

In 1886, German physicist Heinrich Hertz became the first person to transmit and receive radio waves. He called his discovery “Hertzian waves,” but stated that he did not think they had much practical application. Fortunately, future scientists did not agree, and “radio waves,” as they became known, went on to revolutionize communication.

On March 27, 1899, Italian inventor and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi sent the first international wireless transmission across the English Channel, via Morse code. His work in radiotelegraphy, in which short pulses of radio waves are transmitted in short “dots” or long “dashes,” gained more attention later that year when he broadcast the results of the America’s Cup, from a ship to the offices of several New York newspapers. Radiotelegraphy remained the key way of transmitting wireless messages for commercial and military purposes until the middle of the 20th century.

Chicago’s Galvin Manufacturing Corporation launched the first commercially available in-car radios in 1930. After the product’s success, Paul Galvin changed the company name to Motorola. The popularity of in-car radios led to most car manufacturers developing their own, squeezing Motorola out of the market. Today, Motorola is best known for making mobile phones.

In 1945, Arthur C. Clarke circulated a paper entitled “The Space-Station: Its Radio Applications.” In it, he outlined the theoretical use of satellites to beam radio and television signals. Clarke’s ideas were well ahead of his time. Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, was launched in 1957, and it wasn’t until 1962 that NASA launched Telstar, the first satellite to broadcast television images.

Guglielmo Marconi orchestrated the first successful transmission of a radio message across the Atlantic Ocean in 1901. The message, consisting of the Morse code for the letter “S,” was broadcast from Poldhu in Cornwall, England, and was received over 2,000 miles away in Newfoundland, Canada. In 1909, Marconi was awarded a Nobel Prize for his radio innovations.

The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) was founded in October 1922 by John Reith. The following month, the BBC launched its first daily show, called "2LO," broadcast from the Marconi House in London. In 1932, when King George V became the first British monarch to address the nation via radio, he did so on the BBC. Still a household name today, the BBC is one of the largest mass media companies in the world.

Invented in 1933, frequency modulation (FM) radio had a much better sound quality with less static than existing AM (amplitude modulation) radio. However, it took a while to catch on, because few people at the time owned radio sets capable of picking up FM signals. To encourage a switch to FM, radio stations began “simulcasting” shows in AM and FM. Over time, FM radios became more affordable, and by the 1950s, FM radio had grown in popularity.