Nikola Tesla was born on July 9, 1856, in the village of Smiljan, Austria-Hungary. Tesla was a man who wanted things done perfectly.

Nikola was training to be an engineer. He attended the Technical University of Graz and the University of Prague in the years of 1879 to 1880. At TUG he found ways to use alternating current. He made his first invention, a telephone repeater. Tesla went to work in Paris for the Continental Edison Company. Tesla sailed to America in 1884. His first employment in the USA was with Thomas Edison in New Jersey.

In May of 1885 a man named George Westinghouse bought the patent rights to Nikola Tesla's polyphase system of alternating-current dynamos, transformers, and motors. This purchase led to problems between several companies over alternating and non alternating electrical current.

Tesla invented but lost his rights to an arc-lighting system. Tesla formed his own laboratory in New York City. He experimented with shadowgraphs when he discovered X-rays in 1895. Tesla's other experiments were a carbon button lamp, the power of electrical resonance, and on various types of lighting.

Tesla lighted lamps without wires by allowing electricity to flow through his body to show there was no danger in alternating current. The Tesla coil, which is used for in radio and television sets and other electronic equipment for wireless communication.

He made the induction motor, which uses his rotating magnetic field principle and other electrical motorsTesla invented fluorescent lights and a new type of steam turbine. A debate between alternating current and direct-current people went on in 1880s and 1890s. The advantages of the polyphase alternating-current system, developed by Tesla,proved to be the best for long distance. Westinghouse used Tesla's system to light the World Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893. His success was a factor in winning him the contract to install the first power machinery at Niagara Falls. The project carried power to Buffalo by 1896.

In 1898 Tesla announced his invention of a teleautomatic boat guided by remote control.

Tesla made what he regarded as his most important discovery - terrestrial stationary waves. The discovery proved that the earth could be used as a conductor and would be as responsive as a tuning fork to electrical vibrations of a certain pitch.

He lighted many lamps without wires from a distance of 25 miles and created man-made lightning. He hoped someday to use this system all over the world

Going back to New York in 1900, Tesla started construction on Long Island of a wireless world-broadcasting tower with J. Pierpont Morgan.

He wanted to provide worldwide communication and to build factories or offices for sending pictures, messages, weather warnings, and stock reports.

Tesla's ideas turned to turbines and other projects.

Tesla had problems with dealing with germs . Tesla was a demanding leader.

Tesla died in New York City on January 7, 1943.