The seed for Amateur Radio was planted in the 1890s, when Guglielmo Marconi began his experiments in wireless telegraphy. Soon he was joined by dozens, then hundreds. of others who were enthusiastic about sending and receiving messages through air-some with a commercial interest, but others solely out of a love for this new communication medium. The United States government began licensing Amateur radio operators in 1912.By 1914, there were thousands of Amateur Radio operators (hams) in the United states. Hiram Percy Maxim, a leading Hartford, Connecticut, inventor and industrialist saw the need for an organization to band together this fledging group of radio experimenters. In May 1914 he founded the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) to meet that need.Today ARRL, with more than 160,000 members, is the largest organization of radio amateurs.