Nikola Tesla wasn't just brilliant; his inventions changed the world in ways that are still visible
every single day.
And though he has had a resurgence in notability in recent years, with a trendy electric car
company named for him and numerous portrayals in film and television, he never quite got
his due credit.
Here's what you may not have known about his life.
The popular legend about how Tesla was born might be a little too cinematic to be true.
According to Hourly History's Nikola Tesla: A Life From Beginning to End, Tesla entered
the world in 1856, in what is now Croatia, in the midst of a horrific lightning storm.
Reportedly, the storm was so bad that the midwife got the willies and told Tesla's mother
that the baby would be a, quote, "child of darkness."
Tesla's mother supposedly promptly told the midwife, "No, he will be a child of light."
Once Tesla's mother, an inventor herself, introduced science to her son, the boy's future
was clear.
Nikola loved studying science, and his schooling and research took him to Austria, Prague,
and Budapest, where he ended up working for the Central Telephone Exchange.
One day on a leisurely walk through the park in Budapest, he randomly came up with the
idea for what would one day be the induction motor, one of his greatest inventions.
He soon dreamed of setting sail for the United States, and at age 28, he finally did so.
According to the Tesla Memorial Society of New York, Tesla was able to immigrate to the
U.S. because of a recommendation letter inventor Charles Batchelor wrote to famed "Wizard of
Menlo Park" Thomas Edison, stating,
"I know two great men.
One is you, and the other is this young man."
Tesla promptly went to work for Edison.
At the time, Edison's company was using "direct current" electricity, and the newbie Tesla
proposed an innovative idea: replacing the inefficient direct current setup with "alternating
Edison scoffed at this, challenging Tesla to develop his ideas into a real invention,
putting up $50,000 to sweeten the deal.
Tesla gleefully pounced on the challenge, and within only a few months, he proudly offered
Edison his successful results.
But Edison refused to pay, brushing Tesla off with a mean comment about how Tesla didn't
understand, quote, "American humor."
Tesla left Edison's company shortly afterward.
As it turns out, Tesla was right.
While Edison's direct current electricity flowed in only one direction, Tesla's alternating
current changed direction 50 to 60 times a second, according to the Tesla Memorial Society
of New York.
Edison's setup required power stations to be built every 2 miles, making it a huge chore
and financial burden to send power over long distances.
Tesla's method changed that.
"Direct current may be fine for cities when the buildings are close together, but most
of your country is empty spaces.
Only high voltage can span the distance."
After Edison stiffed Tesla on his $50,000, Tesla turned to George Westinghouse for funding.
Westinghouse saw the potential in AC, and decided to spread Tesla's invention across
the country, powering the entire United States.
Tesla's most notable victory came in 1896, when one of his inventions harnessed the power
of Niagara Falls, sending electricity all the way to Buffalo, New York.
Tesla also created the "Tesla coil," which would become the basis for how radios and
televisions are powered.
He also designed a remote-controlled boat ⁠ a highly fictionalized version of which
appears in the video game Red Dead Redemption II.
"I am the savior of the mankind, buddy."
He hoped it would forever end the use of manned battleships, sort of like how drones are used today.
Tesla studied X-rays, invented electric oscillators and meters, worked with radio communications,
and developed a so-called "earthquake machine."
He told the New York World-Telegram in 1935 that he once triggered such a heavy earthquake
in New York City that the police had rushed to his lab.
Mythbusters even once tried and failed to replicate his experiment.
According to PBS, Tesla at one point developed plans for a "death beam," which he claimed would
"[...] send concentrated beams of particles through the free air, of such tremendous energy
that they will bring down a fleet of 10,000 enemy airplanes at a distance of 250 miles."
The idea was to develop a weapon so insanely powerful that it would deter any countries
from ever going to war again.
Tesla also envisioned automated labor and self-driving cars well before they were feasible.
Tesla's biggest dream was to bring free, wireless electricity to everyone in the world, according
to Biography.
"Where are the wires?"
"Exactly."
In 1901, banker J.P. Morgan funded Tesla's dream of building a giant transmission tower
on Long Island, which Tesla called Wardenclyffe.
But that project hit a tragic stumbling block when Tesla's investors second-guessed whether
he could actually pull it off.
The project ended, the employees were laid off, and Tesla went into bankruptcy by 1917.
According to History, he once worked a manual labor job where he dug ditches for $2 a day.
After the financial collapse of Wardenclyffe, he essentially became a hermit, living on
the 33rd floor of the New Yorker Hotel, his primary companions being the pigeons who visited
him there.
It's been theorized that Tesla may have had obsessive-compulsive disorder.
He was intensely careful about avoiding germs, washing his hands constantly, and avoiding
handshakes at all costs, according to Prodigal Genius.
He was also apparently obsessed with the number three.
He would walk around a building three times before entering, and wash his hands three
times in a row.
The Smithsonian raises the possibility that he may also have been on the autism spectrum,
citing his intense sensitivity to sounds, excellent sensory awareness, and severe dislike
for both pearls and women's earrings.
By the time he died in his hotel room in 1943, Tesla was seen as more of a bizarre science
fiction spectacle than a brilliant icon, a perception which the Smithsonian argues may
have been created by Tesla's, quote, "willingness to play the mad scientist," by making wild
claims in tabloid magazines.
According to a New York Times piece from 1984, it wasn't until nearly 40 years after Tesla's
death that society began to acknowledge the sheer magnitude of his impact on the world.
A brand new Tesla statue was unveiled on Long Island in 2013, and the Wardenclyffe site
has been converted into the Tesla Science Center.
The airport in Belgrade, Serbia, proudly displays Nikola Tesla's name.
And, there are, of course, the electric cars that bear his name.
Though Nikola Tesla struggled throughout his life, the history books will look back on him fondly.
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