A Great Man

Engineering and scientific societies the world over will mark on July 10, 1956, the 100th anniversary of the birth of a truly great man, Dr. Nikola Tesla.

Born in Smiljan, Croatia, of Serb parents, this late inventive genius saw the world turn into today's magic realm of electricity, radio, television and electronics all within his lifetime of service to mankind.

Other men also saw these changes. And they marveled at them all.

"But," as Gardner Soule writes in the July, 1956, issue of "Popular Science" magazine, "Tesla was not amazed. He planned it that way. He engineered it."

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TO THE average American, including our own people, the names of Thomas A. Edison, George Westinghouse and other inventors are accepted household words.

But Dr. Tesla did more for America and the world than Edison, Westinghouse and all their inventive brethren put together and without the slightest desire of enriching himself financially.

And yet it was not until recent years that this immigrant, who came to America in 1884 with four cents in his pocket, was finally recognized by the public as one of the greatest men in American history.

Dr. Tesla died a lonely man January 7, 1943, in a New York hotel room. But he left the world by far better off in countless ways for his inventive genius.

The name of Dr. Nikola Tesla is forever secure in the history of the country he loved so dearly, the United States of America.