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Nikola Tesla was a Serbian American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and futurist best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system.

His father, Milutin Tesla, was an Orthodox priest. Tesla's mother, Đuka Tesla, whose father was also an Orthodox priest, had a talent for making home craft tools, mechanical appliances, and the ability to memorize Serbian epic poems. Đuka had never received a formal education. Nikola credited his eidetic memory and creative abilities to his mother's genetics and influence. Tesla's progenitors were from western Serbia, near Montenegro.

(Source Wikipedia)

He was a gentle soul who invented for the betterment of humanity. He could easily have made millions of dollars, but instead... like many other geniuses before him... he died (on January 7th, 1943), alone and penniless.

This brilliant man was so ahead of his time, that during his day he was practically a wizard. There were many things he was rumored to have done... (caused the "Tunguska Explosion" while working in Colorado, laid the ground works to the alleged "Philadelphia Experiment" and nearly destroyed a Manhattan City Block with his "Death Ray", among others... but here are 10 inventions of his which we still use today!

Alternating Current
Light
X-rays
Radio
Remote Control
Electric Motor
Robotics
Laser
Wireless Communications
Limitless Free Energy

Interesting facts about one of the greatest geniuses to have ever lived...

Tesla was born around midnight, between July 9 and July 10, 1856 during a fierce lightning storm. According to family legend, midway through the birth, the midwife wrung her hands and declared the lightning a bad omen. This child will be a child of darkness, she said, to which his mother replied: “No. He will be a child of light.”

Many have characterized Tesla and inventor Thomas Edison as enemies, but this relationship has been misrepresented. Early in his career, Tesla worked for Edison, designing direct current generators, but famously quit to pursue his own project: the alternating current induction motor. Sure, they were on different sides of the so-called “Current Wars,” with Edison pushing for direct current and Tesla for alternating current. But Carlson considers them the Steve Jobs and Bill Gates of their time: one the brilliant marketer and businessman and the other a visionary and “tech guy.”

On a rare occasion, Edison attended a conference where Tesla was speaking. Edison, hard of hearing and not wanting to be spotted, slipped into the back of the auditorium to listen to the lecture. But Tesla spotted Edison in the crowd, called attention to him and led the audience in giving him a standing ovation.

The two had a love/hate relationship. At first Edison dismissed Tesla, but came to eventually respect.

In the race to develop transatlantic radio, Tesla described to his funder and business partner, J.P. Morgan, a new means of instant communication that involved gathering stock quotes and telegram messages, funneling them to his laboratory, where he would encode them and assign them each a new frequency. That frequency would be broadcast to a device that would fit in your hand, he explained. In other words, Tesla had envisioned the smart phone and wireless internet. Of all of his ideas, that was the one that stopped him in his tracks.

Tesla was the first to be thinking about the information revolution in the sense of delivering information for each individual user.

He also conceived of, but never developed technology for radar, X-rays, a particle beam “death ray” and radio astronomy.

Tesla could not stand the sight of pearls, to the extent that he refused to speak to women wearing them. When his secretary wore pearl jewelry, he sent her home for the day. No one knows why he had such an aversion, but Tesla had a very particular sense of style and aesthetics, and believed that in order to be successful, one needed to look successful. He wore white gloves to dinner every night and prided himself on being a “dapper dresser.”

Tesla had what’s known as a photographic memory. He was known to memorize books and images and stockpile visions for inventions in his head. He also had a powerful imagination and the ability to visualize in three dimensions, which he used to control the terrifying vivid nightmares he suffered from as a child. It’s in part what makes him such a mystical and eccentric character in popular culture. He was also known for having excessive hygiene habits, born out of a near-fatal bout of cholera as a teenager.

Jenny Marder contributed to this report.

From the article "8 Things You Didn’t Know About Nikola Tesla"

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/5-things-you-didnt-know-about-nikola-tesla/

Watch this fantastic illusion style presentation of Nikola Tesla's life by illusionist Marco Tempest.