Inventor, electrical engineer and phisicist Nikola Tesla was born at midnight between the 9th and 10th of July 1856 in the village of Smiljan near Gospić (today Croatia, Europe). He comes from an Orthodox family. His father Milutin was an Orthodox priest, his mother Georgina (Đuka) also comes from a family of Orthodox priests. He had four siblings: three sisters Angelina, Milka, Marica and a brother named Dane.
Tesla started school in Smiljan where he finished what was known as Krajiška trivijalka, he learned German, mathematics and religion. After moving to Gospić he carried forward with elementary school finishing Pripremnu osnovnu školu and Lower real gymnasium. From Gospić he left for Rakovac located near Karlovac and finished Higher real gymnasium. While in Graz he attended the Polytechnic university with a scholarship from the Military frontier but lost his scholarship after the Military frontier fell apart and never finished his second year at university.
He started playing cards and gambling to try and make up for the financial loss however doesn’t manage and decides to leave university before entering his third year. For a short while he worked in Maribor and after the death of his father in 1879 he moved back to Gospić where he worked in the Real gymnasium of Gospić. In 1880 he tried to enroll in university in the city of Prague yet isn’t accepted and a year later he begins working in Budapest constructing the first telephone network.
In 1896 the first hydroelectric plant is commissioned at the foot of Niagara Falls and used Tesla’s patents of alternating current. He first demonstrates the remote control in 1898 and continues his research with high frequency and high voltage currents. In 1899 Nikola Tesla decides to move his laboratory to Colorado Springs where he works for a year. After his time in Colorado Springs he moves to Long Island and starts construcing his system of wireless transmition of electricity but never had the chance to finish his research because J.P. Morgan refused to continue to finance him. In 1907 he presents the bladeless turbine and continues on with his inventions in engineering from 1910 to 1922.
In 1919 Tesla’s autobigraphy „My inventions“ was first published. He registers his patents in a multitude of areas, for example, the patent for vaccumizing, an vertical lift off aircraft and works on improving the process of producing sulfur, iron and copper.
He was awarded the Edison medal in 1917 and in 1926 received an honorary doctorate from the University of Zagreb. In 1937 and earned two honorary doctorates from the Polytechnic University in Graz and the University of Paris. Tesla spent his life living in hotels and that is where he died. He was found dead in the New Yorker Hotel in New York on the 33rd floor in appartment 3327 he was 86 years old.
