Did The Great Radio Controversy Changed Everyone’s Perception of Radio?

Given that it clarified the fact that Guglielmo Marconi wasn’t the real inventor of radio, it the “Great Radio Controversy” changed everyone’s perception of radio?

By: Ringo Bones

Even though there are still a lot of people who believed that the Italian named Guglielmo Marconi is the real inventor of radio, it is still a disappointing fraction of the world’s populace who know that Nikola Tesla is radio’s true inventor. Maybe the U.S. Supreme Court should still be constantly reassuring everyone that they’ve already reached a decision that granted Tesla as radio’s true inventor in the so-called “Great Radio Controversy” for almost 73 years.

Back in October 1942, the United States Supreme Court entered into the “Great Radio Controversy”. Though the invention of the radio had long been attributed to Guglielmo Marconi – as evident in schoolbooks still in current use in the United States and the rest of the world – the U.S. Supreme Court justices were intrigued by patent records and scientific publications which pointed to Nikola Tesla as radio’s true creator.

In June of 1943, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that Nikola Tesla had, in fact, invented modern radio technology. Ruling that Marconi’s patents were invalid and had been “anticipated”, Tesla was vindicated though far from victorious. Some five months earlier, alone and destitute in a New York hotel room, the great inventor had died. His papers and notes were seized by the United States Alien Property Office and are now housed in the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.