This day in Russian history and the History of the world.

February 6

February 6, 1900: Alexander Stepanovitch Popov's wireless apparatus was used in the first ever use of radio communications to help a vessel in distress.

The battleship General-Admiral Apraksin was going down amidst the ice floes of the Gulf of Finland with hundreds of sailors and officers aboard, but Popov's radio system enabled them to contact Hogland and Kutsalo islands 45 kilometers away.

Those wireless stations relayed the distress messages and rescue orders to the icebreaker Ermak.

Alexander Stepanovich Popov ( March 16 [Old style March 4] 1859 - January 13 [Old style December 31, 1905] 1906) was a Russian physicist who first demonstrated the practical application of electromagnetic (radio) waves, although he did not apply for a patent for his invention.

---