Remembering Nikola Tesla

(World savant who passed away Christmas Day, January 7, 1943)

Midnight, July 8-10, 1856 (old calendar) - Born of Rev. Milutin and Djouka (Mandic) Tesla, both families of “Old Serbia,” in the village of Smiljan, on the Austro-Hungarian border province of Lika. Now part of Croatia.

1880 - Completed studies in physics and mathematics at the University of Prague.

1883 - Constructed the first induction motor when employed in the electric power station at Strassburg.

June 6, 1884 - Arrived in America at the Castle Garden Immigration Office in Manhattan off the ship City of Richmond.

1887 through 1891 - Obtained 30 fundamental patents for the alternating-current system of power transmission (single phase and polyphase) including induction, synchronous, and split-phase motors, based on the rotating magnetic field principle.

July 30, 1891 - Became naturalized citizen.

1891-1893 - Delivered his revolutionary trio-series of demonstration lectures in America and in Europe, presenting for the first times high frequency induction heating, neon and fluorescent lamps. Resonance and impedance phenomena, and methods of conversion to achieve high frequency currents from low frequency circuits (the “Tesla coil,” patented in 1891). The principles of telegraphy without wires were demonstrated in lectures delivered before the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, February 1893, and before a meeting of the National Electric Light Association, St. Louis, March 1893.

June 1899 - Established an experimental station at Colorado Springs (on what is now the southeast corner of Foote and Kiowa streets), and produced the longest point-to-point electrical discharge ever achieved by man.

January, 1899 - Christmas Day, on his departure from Colorado Springs returning to New York, Tesla issued the daring statement of receiving extraterrestrial codes in the form of electromagnetic signals, for which he was ridiculed in the press. Now, world astronomical groups would be clamoring to knock on the door of anyone claiming it!

1900 - Obtained fundamental radio patents based on the four-tuned circuit principle.

1901 - Established the “Wardenclyffe” project near Shoreham, Long Island, the laboratory building now an historic site.

1903 - Obtained patent on the “art of individualization,” now known as the AND logic gate - the fundamental decision element used in all digital computers.

1913, 1920 - Obtained patents on what is now called the “Tesla turbine,” based on the spiral-flow principle between closely spaced disks.

1928 - Obtained patent on a novel helicopter plane, now known as vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft.

10:30 P.M., January 7, 1943, Serbian Orthodox Christmas - died, alone, in his rooms at the Hotel New Yorker.

(June 21, 1943) - United States Supreme court holds the broad claims of the Marconi four-tuned circuit radio patent invalid because of anticipation by Tesla.

Leland Anderson
Denver, Colorado