On October 6, 1866, Reginald Aubrey Fessenden was born in East Bolton, Quebec. He would become one of the key figures in early radio, working on the idea that radio could carry the human voice and music, not just the dots and dashes of Morse code. Those experiments were a big step toward the broadcasting we now take for granted.
Fessenden is best known for his work on amplitude modulation (AM), the technique that lets a radio wave carry sound by varying its strength. In 1900 he transmitted speech over about a mile, a first for radio. He is also credited with a 1906 Christmas Eve broadcast of music and talk to ships at sea, though historians still debate exactly what was sent and how well it was heard. Either way, he showed that radio could reach a wide audience and not just one receiver at a time.
Source: Wikipedia: Reginald Fessenden; Tom Merritt: Tech History Today
Daily Tech History is a running series looking back at notable moments in technology on this date.
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