Nikola Tesla was born in Smiljan, Croatian Krajina on July 10, 1856 and according to legend was born at exactly midnight during an electrical storm. His father, Reverend Milutin Tesla, was a priest in the Serbian Orthodox Church Metropolitante of Sremski Karlovci. His mother was a daughter of another priest of the same church. The Teslas had five children, three daughters, and two sons. When Nikola was only nine years old, his brother was killed in a freak horse riding accident. His three surviving siblings were; Milka, Agelina, and Marica, and in 1862 the Tesla family moved to Gospić where Nikola finished a four year school term, in Karlovac, in no more than three.1
As a child Tesla was very bright, and found it enjoyable to write poetry and experiment. His parents thought that he would follow in his fathers footsteps by becoming a priest, but Nikola had other plans. While at the Real Gymnasium in Karlovac, he developed an incurable interest in the sciences. In 1877 he started attending the Technical University in Graz, Austria.2 The University claims that he did not receive a degree from their university, and in fact quit attending lectures in his third semester there. In December of 1878 he went to Maribor, Slovenia breaking all ties with his family. Once there he was employed as an assistant engineer for a year. Nikola's father convinced him to attend the Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague, but upon the death of his father left the university.
In 1881 Nikola moved to Budapest, Hungary to work in the National Telephone Company, owned by Tividar Puskás. On the opening of the telephone exchange in Budapest he became the chief electrician of the company. While he was working for the
company he came up with a device that may have been, by some reports, the first loudspeaker. In 1882 he moved to Paris so that he could work as an engineer for the Continental Edison Company, improving designs of electrical components. While Tesla was in France he conceived the induction motor and this led to the development of many devices that used the same principle, rotating magnetic fields. Shortly after this, his mother was struck ill and Tesla hastened to her side, after his mother had died Tesla was struck ill and stayed for two to three weeks recovering.3
Nikola emigrated to the United states in 18844 and arrived in New York city with no more than 4 cents in his pocket5 and a letter of recommendation from Charles Batchelor, his last manager. In this letter to Thomas Edison Charles wrote, “I know two great men and you are one of them; the other is this young man.” With this recommendation Edison hired the young Tesla. Very soon Tesla was given the task of completely redesigning Edison's DC generators.6 The differences in style soon drove the men apart and eventually led to the Current Wars.7
Initial investors of Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing, a company founded by Nikola Tesla in 1886, relieved him of all of his duties in the company because they disagreed on his plan for an AC motor. From 1886 to 1887 Tesla fed himself with work as a common laborer, but some of his earnings were saved for his next grand project, a brushless AC induction motor. In 1887 he constructed his motor and in 1888 demonstrated it for the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. But the AC motor was not all he was doing at the time, during that same year he developed the principles behind the Tesla coil and initiated the beginning of a long relationship between himself and George Westinghouse, who listened to his grand ideas for systems that would allow AC electricity to be transmitted over long distances.
July 30, 1891; Tesla became a naturalized citizen of the United States of America at the age of 35 years old, 6 years after he first came ashore. One year later, Tesla received the first patents concerning his new system of polyphase power, or AC electricity. From 1893 to 1895, he investigated many of the high frequency properties of AC and generated an AC reading of over 1 million volts with his new conical Tesla coil, which he used to investigate the skin effect in conductors.8
With this improved Tesla coil (a Tesla coil is actually two coils which are wrapped and placed in such a way so as the incoming coil charges the outgoing coil, but at a different frequency and voltage) he could produce an electric spark over 130 feet long, and lights of gas-filled tubes (such as neon) over many miles, in fact he lit 200 over a distance of 25 miles without the use of wires between his machine and the lights. More importantly this led him to new ideas, mainly radio. By upping the frequency of his AC energy he was making what we commonly call radio waves, and by using a lower voltage form he was able to use his new high frequency energy to eventually remotely control two model boats on the lake in Madison Square Garden, New York.9
