Fun Fact # 506 Craft Mac and Defense

 Fun Fact #506

Craft Mac and Defense

When most people think of Macoroni, the 6th largest Defense contractor in the world  –BAE Systems– is rarely the first thing to come to mind. Founded in 1897 Guglielmo Marconi’s Wireless Telegraph and Signal Corporation was originally based in Italy making the first commercially successful Radio Transmitters, later Gugielmo moved his business to Great Britain. Here he made the discovered how to improve radios by transmitting waves vertically to get beyond the 1/2mile radio range limit at the time.

The company came to fame when their employees sent the distress signals from the RMS Titanic and organized the search and rescue. The success of this effort led to their Radios being adopted world-wide, turning them into one of the leading Defense contractors for World War 1. Later in 1968 they were bought by The General Electric Company who turned them into their primary defense Electronics and Naval shipbuilding subsidiary (Macaroni Electronic Systems) merging them with Yarrow Shipbuilding, among others along the way. 

Then in 1999 Macaroni Electronic Systems was bought and merged with the British Aerospace Company forming BAE Systems. Today they are the largest Defense contractor in Europe helping to develop the upcoming Eurofighter Typhoon, Astute-Class Submarine, among other endeavors.

     BAE also evaluates nominations to the Macoroni Awards which are for advancements in radio and categories for Radio shows with categories based on size and organization format. Nominations open May 1st for the 2024 awards and anyone can nominate a singular radio show or inventor. Interestingly they did expand radio shows to include podcasts.

Good Morning Everyone, This week’s theme is defense Contractors. More specifically this week will focus on contractors outside of The US, Russia, and China which means there is no day planned for Boeing, Rostec, or Norinco. This is in an attempt to shine a light on companies you may not have heard of before and might find interesting. I hope you enjoy it, thank you for reading  and please have a wonderful day. 

Villa Macoroni with Macoroni’s Tomb in the foreground. Photographed by Maksim.