Nikola Tesla – His Life and Legacy Supplement

Tesla’s Early Years

Left: Tesla's father Right: Tesla at age 23

Niagara Falls, from Goat Island, circa 1867 (Courtesy Library of Congress)

In 1939, Tesla wrote the story of his first childhood encounter with electricity. Share this online, illustrated version of A Story of Youth Told By Age with another curious, young mind.

Gramme dynamo, 1877 (Courtesy Smithsonian Institution)

Coming to America

Left: Tesla at age 29 Right: Thomas Edison

Edison System Central Station on Pearl Street, 1883 (Courtesy Smithsonian Institution)

View Tesla's electric arc lamp patent.

View Tesla's alternating motor patent

Edison jumbo dynamo from Pearl Street

Stock certificate for the Tesla Electric Light and Manufacturing Company

War of the Currents

Two-phase induction motor

George Westinghouse, 1906

Early Tesla induction motor

"Court of Honor" at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1893

View AC motor patents 381,968, 390,414, 417,794, and 555,190.

Learn more about the differences between AC and DC.

Harnessing Niagara

Catch a ride on a current and see how hydroelectric power works. Our virtual journey takes you from waterfall to generator to power line.

Niagara Falls, from Goat Island, cira 1867 (courtesy Library of Congress)

Lord Kelvin visiting the Westinghouse Company, 1897

A Niagara generator under construction at Westinghouse in Pittsburg, 1894

Edward Dean Adams power station at Niagara (Courtesy Smithsonian Institution)

George and Marguerite Westinghouse at Niagara Falls, circa 1895

High Frequency

First photograph exposed by phosphorescent light, taken of Tesla in his laboratory

Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (Courtesy Library of Congress)

Woodcut from Electrical World depicting a Tesla lecture on high frequency, 1891

Neon lights first displayed at Columbian Exposition, 1893

Mark Twain in Tesla's laboratory, 1895

Visit our virtual laboratory to see how a Tesla coil and high-frequency lighting really work.

Who Invented Radio?

Tesla demonstrates "wireless" power transmission in his Houston Street laboratory, 1899

U.S. patent number 649,621, still the fundamental means for transmitting and receiving radio waves

Marconi with early system of wireless telegraphy

U.S. patent office, circa 1900

U.S. Navy shipboard transmitter.

Take a closer look at Tesla's radio transmission device

Race of Robots

Take a closer look at Tesla's remote control technology.

The first practical remote-controlled robot

View Tesla's remote control patent.

Interior of Tesla's remote-controlled boat

Submergible version of Tesla's remote-controlled craft

View Tesla's "Method of Signaling" patent

Colorado Springs

Colorado Springs and Pikes Peak, circa 1900

Experimental station

Tesla seated by coil

Illustrations of earth pump

Bulb glowing in ground

Letter to American Red Cross

Take a closer look at a Tesla coil.

Tower of Dreams

World Wide Wireless illustration

J.P. Morgan

Wardenclyffe interior

Tesla's tower with dome frame, completed in 1904

View Tesla's "Apparatus for Transmitting Electrical Energy" patent

Poet and Visionary

Tesla at age 64

Tesla turbine

Tesla's white pigeon

Tesla's pigeon feed menu

Conceptual aircraft design

“Apparatus for Aerial Transportation”

Poem, "Fragments of Olympian Gossip"

A Weapon to End War

Tesla at 79

Illustration of war in the future

Drawing showing a component of Tesla's beam weapon

Drawing showing Tesla's high potential terminal and powerhouse

The Missing Papers

Tesla's suite at the hotel New Yorker following his funeral, 1943

Articles in Tesla's hotel room after his death

Model of Tesla's remote-controlled boat

Library archives at the Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Yugoslavia

Suspected Soviet beam weapon installation

Death mask of Nikola Tesla

Samples of Documents from Tesla's FBI File

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