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Today in History, December 12th

On December 12, 1901, Marconi heard the first radio signal sent across the Atlantic. Plus Bush v. Gore and the Paris climate agreement.

By Today in History Updated November 10, 2026 3 min read Sources checked

Published December 12, 2025 · Last updated November 10, 2026

December 12 is best known for 1901, when Guglielmo Marconi heard the first radio signal sent across the Atlantic Ocean. The date also brought the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bush v. Gore in 2000 and the adoption of the Paris climate agreement in 2015.

The big story: Marconi Hears a Signal Across the Atlantic (1901)

The message was a single letter: three short clicks, Morse code for “S.” Guglielmo Marconi had arranged for a powerful spark transmitter at Poldhu in Cornwall, England, to tap out the letter again and again. He set up his receiver in a former hospital building on Signal Hill, above the harbor at St. John’s, Newfoundland, about 3,500 kilometers away. A gale carried off the first kite holding his antenna, so he sent up another trailing roughly 500 feet of wire. On December 12, 1901, listening through a telephone earpiece, Marconi and his assistant George Kemp heard the faint clicks. Not everyone believed them. Kemp was the only other witness, and the signal was too weak to record. Two months later, though, Poldhu’s signals were strong enough to drive a printing Morse receiver in front of witnesses. Messages no longer needed an undersea cable to cross the ocean.

More events on December 12

Year	What happened
1787	Pennsylvania ratified the U.S. Constitution by a vote of 46 to 23, becoming the second state to do so.
1913	Police recovered the Mona Lisa in a Florence hotel room, more than two years after former Louvre worker Vincenzo Peruggia stole it from the Paris museum.
1936	Two of his own generals seized Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek in the Xi’an Incident, pushing him to stop fighting the communists and join them against Japan.
1937	Japanese aircraft sank the U.S. Navy gunboat Panay on China’s Yangtze River, killing three men. Japan apologized and called it a mistake.
1963	Kenya gained independence from Britain. A year later, on the same date, it became a republic.
1965	Chicago Bears rookie Gale Sayers scored six touchdowns on a muddy field against the San Francisco 49ers, tying the NFL single-game record.
2000	In Bush v. Gore, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 to stop Florida’s manual recount, which effectively settled the presidential election for George W. Bush.
2015	Negotiators from 195 countries adopted the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Born on December 12

1745: John Jay (Old Style), diplomat, co-author of The Federalist and the first chief justice of the U.S.
1821: Gustave Flaubert, French novelist who wrote Madame Bovary.
1863: Edvard Munch, Norwegian painter of The Scream.
1915: Frank Sinatra, singer and actor from Hoboken, New Jersey.
1927: Robert Noyce, co-inventor of the integrated circuit and co-founder of Intel.