Celebrating 100 Years of Radio Broadcasting

Today marks 100 years since Iceland’s first radio broadcast — a centenary worth pausing over. The broadcast took place in the Free Church of Hafnarfjörður, where on January 31, 1926, a sailor’s mass went out over the airwaves. That was four years before the National Broadcasting Company even existed. It’s a small detail that says a lot: radio arrived in Iceland before there was any official structure to support it, carried forward by a handful of people who simply believed it mattered. That belief changed how Icelanders communicated, and its echo is still felt today.