Riding Along In My Automobile

You owe this aural experience to the device that’s broadcasting my voice. The radio.

Beginning in the late 1880s, various inventors labored to find a way to send signals through the air without the aid of wires.

Finally, on Christmas Eve of 1906, Reginald Fessenden made the first radio broadcast. Ships at sea listened in wonder as he played “O Holy Night” on his violin and read a passage from the Bible.

Now, after a century of hits and where were you when you heard…? moments, radio thrives by way of satellite and digital technologies.

By the way, if you’re on the road, you might be curious about how radios became standard equipment in automobiles.

Thank Paul Galvin, who in 1929 built a radio set that could be installed in a car. It was an instant success, and Galvin changed the name of his company to combine the words motoring and victrola.

We still know it… as Motor-ola.