Hedy Lamarr was considered one of the most beautiful women in Europe, but did you know she was also a brilliant inventor? Born as Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler on November 9, 1914 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary. By the 1930’s she was a film star in Europe and not long after, in the U.S.
Inspired to help the U.S. effort in WWII, she worked to design a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes that would defeat the threat of jamming.
Ultimately her innovation was not used in the war, but the principles of her work are now incorporated into modern Wi-Fi, CDMA and Bluetooth technology. On August 11, 1942 Hedy Lamarr received a patent for her ‘frequency hopping communication system’ – the basis of much of today’s wireless technology. She was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.