Hedy Lamarr

<p>Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler was born on November 9, 1914, in Vienna, Austria. After starring in European cinema, she fled an oppressive marriage to Austrian arms dealer Fritz Mandl and arrived in Hollywood in 1937 under contract with Louis B. Mayer, adopting the screen name Hedy Lamarr. She starred in classic films including <em>Algiers</em> (1938), <em>Boom Town</em> (1940), and Cecil B. DeMille's epic <em>Samson and Delilah</em> (1949).</p><p>Alongside her glamorous cinema career, Lamarr possessed an inquisitive engineering intellect. During World War II, learning that radio-controlled naval torpedoes were easily jammed by enemy frequencies, she collaborated with avant-garde composer George Antheil to develop a secret communication system. Utilizing synchronized paper player-piano rolls to hop radio frequencies across 88 channels, their invention made torpedo guidance unjammable. In August 1942, they received US Patent 2,292,387.</p><p>Though the US Navy did not deploy the invention until the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, frequency-hopping spread spectrum became the cornerstone of modern wireless data transmission. In 1997, the Electronic Frontier Foundation awarded Lamarr its Pioneer Award, and in 2014, she was inducted posthumously into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. German-speaking nations celebrate Inventors' Day on November 9 in honor of her birthday.</p>