Hollywood star Hedy Lamarr (Ziegfeld Girl, Samson and Delilah) was known as the world’s most beautiful woman–Snow White and Cat Woman were both based on her iconic look. However, her arresting appearance and glamorous life stood in the way of her being given the credit she deserved as an ingenious inventor whose pioneering work helped revolutionize modern communication technology. An Austrian Jewish emigrant who invented a covert communication system to try to help defeat the Nazis during World War II, Lamarr was ignored by the scientific community at the time. It was only toward the very end of her life that it was discovered that her invention is the basis for secure WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth technologies.

[text adapted from thirteen.org]