Irish-Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi ushered in a new era of
global communications, sending the first radio transmission
across the Atlantic Ocean on this day in history, Dec. 12, 1901.

The message was the letter "s" in Morse code (dot-dot-dot). But
it proved after years of advances by Marconi that radio could
make the world a smaller place.

The wireless signal traveled 2,000 miles from a transmitting
station in Poldhu, Cornwall, in the far southwestern corner of
England, to a receiving station in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi
(25 April 1874 – 20 July 1937)

The world’s second oldest woman has died at the age of 116 at
a nursing home in Japan. Fusa Tatsumi (pictured in each photo),
who was Japan’s oldest person, passed away on Tuesday at a
care facility in Osaka after eating her favorite meal of bean-paste
jelly.
(Wikimedia Commons)

Japanese Sweet Bean Paste Jelly.

On December 12, 1967, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,
a groundbreaking movie about an interracial romantic
relationship starring Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy,
Sidney Poitier and Katharine Houghton, opened in theaters.

The film was the final role for Spencer Tracy. He was very
ill during production but insisted on continuing. Filming
of his role was completed just 17 days before his death
from a heart attack in June 1967. He was 67.

Hepburn never saw the completed film, saying it would be
too painful for her.    
    
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner was nominated for 10 Academy
Awards, including Best Picture, and collected two Oscars,
including Best Actress for Hepburn, the second of her career.  

Jeffrey Foskett, longtime touring member of the Beach Boys
who was dubbed the band’s “vice principal” by its principal
members, has died at 67 following a years-long battle with
anaplastic thyroid cancer.

Astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt were last 2 individuals to walk on the moon as of today.

The U.S.-crewed spaceflight to the moon on Dec. 7, 1972, was
known as Apollo 17 — also known as the final flight of the
Apollo program.

This particular spaceflight included two historic astronauts:
Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt.

These Apollo 17 astronauts would become — on this day in
history, Dec. 11, 1972 — the last humans to walk on the moon
thus far.