As you turn on the radio for your favourite music programme, do you ever wonder how you can (37) _____ those sounds? How do they travel through the air and (38) _____ your radio exactly as they are sent out?

It all began nearly a hundred years ago when a young Italian called Guglielmo Marconi discovered (39) _____ to send sounds through the air. Marconi was born in Bologna (40) _____ northern Italy, in 1874. His father was a rich Italian businessman, and his mother was a Scot (41) _____ had lived in Ireland and had gone to Italy to study music. The family lived in a country house just outside Bologna.

(42) _____ he was a boy, people did not think that Marconi was clever. He was a quiet boy who spoke little (43) _____ thought a lot. He liked to sit and read science books (44) _____ his father's big library. He also loved to (45) _____ experiments with electricity. For most of his early life, he was (46) _____ at home. He did not go to school.