During the afternoon of 12 December 1901, using an antenna consisting of 500 feet of copper wire suspended from a kite and his battery-powered receiving equipment set up in an abandoned hospital atop Signal Hill, in St John's, Newfoundland, Guglielmo Marconi heard three dots, the morse code signal for the letter S, repeated over and over, sent from Bristol, England. This was the very first trans-Atlantic wireless communication - the forerunner of almost all our telecommunications systems of today.

Marconi left Newfoundland shortly after his achievement, but returned a few years later and constructed a wireless ship-signaling station at Cabot Tower on Signal Hill. This station operated until 1958 when Signal Hill was declared a National Historic Site and taken over by Parks Canada.

This is Cabot Tower on Signal Hill in St. John's Newfoundland.