Many inventions have impacted the world throughout history, but in my opinion one of the most impactful was the invention of radio. This invention has provided society with many things, including entertainment, communication, and easier access to information. Radio is still a central part of society today, but like any other invention, radio has an interesting history of how it has progressed over time. Every invention known to man has had pioneers or people who helped create the product. Radio had many pioneers who enabled its creation and their names are Heinrich Hertz, Nikola Tesla, Ernst Alexander, Edwin Armstrong, Guglielmo Marconi, Lee DeForest, Frank Conrad, Reginald Fessenden and Edward Armstrong. It all started with a German physicist named Heinrich Hertz who, in 1884, proved that you could transmit and receive electrical waves wirelessly. Hertz thought that the work he had done was of no use, but he did not know that what he had done was considered the fundamental element of radio, and that is why every measure of frequency bears its name (Short). That same year, a Serbian-American inventor named Nikola Tesla came to the United States and sold the patents for his inventions to a man named George Westinghouse. After this, Tesla established his own laboratory where he built the Tesla coil, an induction coil that is still used in radio today (Court). The next progression of radio focused on more than just the transmission of waves, with the new focus being the transmission of speech. The first to begin adding speech into the radio mix was Ernst Alexander, a Swedish-born inventor who developed the first alternator allowing the transmission of speech (Short Short). It was so new in the middle of paper......magazine.com/2007/jun/tireless-wireless#.Up6kc8RDsco>.Head, Tom. “Radio censorship.” About.com Civil Liberties. About.com, and Web. December 10, 2013. “Introduction to Mass Communication.” EFFECTS OF RADIO ON SOCIETY*Introduction to Mass Communication| Free online reading lessons. Zainbooks and Web. December 3, 2013. "Brief History of Radio A brief history of radio with a special emphasis on mobile radio." » fcc.gov. Version 2003-2004. Np, and Web. December 4, 2013. .Walker, Jesse. Rebels on the air: an alternative history of radio in America. New York: New York University Press, 2001. Print.