// The Chapters
From Smiljan to the Current Wars
Six acts. Eighty-six years. The man who electrified the world and was erased from it.
1856 – 1884 · The Origin
The Vision in the Park
A boy born during a lightning storm who saw a motor spinning in his mind before he ever built one.
Born during a lightning storm in Smiljan, Croatia (then Austrian Empire), the son of an Orthodox priest. His older brother Dane died in a horse accident when Tesla was five — a trauma that haunted him with guilt for the rest of his life. He studied engineering at the Austrian Polytechnic in Graz but never graduated. In Budapest in 1882, while walking through a park reciting Goethe's Faust, the complete design for an alternating current induction motor appeared in his mind fully formed. He drew it in the dirt with a stick. He arrived in New York City in June 1884 with four cents in his pocket, a letter of introduction to Thomas Edison, and the blueprints for a machine that would change civilization.
Born in Lightning
July 10, 1856 · Smiljan, Austrian Empire
Nikola Tesla is born at midnight during an electrical storm. The midwife calls it a bad omen. His mother, Djuka, replies: "No. He will be a child of light." The scene writes itself. The mythology begins before his first breath.
The Vision in Budapest
February 1882 · City Park, Budapest
Walking at sunset, reciting Goethe, Tesla suddenly sees it — a rotating magnetic field, the complete AC induction motor, spinning in his mind. He drops to his knees and draws the diagram in the dirt. No prototype needed. He can see every component, every rotation, every wire. The machine that will power the 20th century is designed in a park by a man talking to himself.
Four Cents in New York
June 6, 1884 · New York Harbor
Tesla arrives in America carrying a letter of recommendation to Edison from Charles Batchelor. The letter allegedly reads: "I know two great men and you are one of them; the other is this young man." He has four cents, a few poems, and calculations for his AC motor. He walks to Edison's office on Pearl Street.
Off the Grid
Tesla had an eidetic memory — he could visualize complex three-dimensional machines in perfect detail, rotate them in his mind, and identify flaws before building a single prototype. He claimed he could run a mental machine for weeks, then inspect it for wear. Modern psychologists have speculated this was a form of hyperphantasia. It was his superpower and possibly the source of his later mental instability.
1884 – 1893 · The Current Wars
AC vs. DC
Edison promised him $50,000 and never paid. Tesla quit, dug ditches, then joined the man who would fund the overthrow of Edison's empire.
Tesla worked for Edison for about a year. The relationship was doomed: Edison was a DC man, Tesla was AC. When Tesla claims Edison promised him $50,000 for improving his dynamo designs and then reneged ("Tesla, you don't understand our American humor"), Tesla resigned. He spent months digging ditches for $2 a day. In 1887, he filed his patents for the polyphase AC motor and caught the attention of George Westinghouse, who licensed the patents for $60,000 plus $2.50 per AC horsepower generated. The War of the Currents had begun. Edison launched a propaganda campaign electrocuting stray animals with AC to prove it was dangerous. The stakes: who would power the entire nation.
"You Don't Understand American Humor"
1885 · Edison Machine Works, New York
Tesla redesigns Edison's DC dynamos, making them dramatically more efficient. He asks for the promised $50,000. Edison laughs. "Tesla, you don't understand our American humor." Tesla walks out. He will never work for another man again.
Scene 16
filmed
AIEE Lecture
Paradigm Shift
The AIEE Demonstration
May 16, 1888 · Columbia University
Tesla demonstrates his polyphase AC system to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. He shows an AC motor running without commutators, sparks, or maintenance. The audience of engineers understands immediately: this is superior to everything Edison has built. Westinghouse is in the audience. He writes a check within weeks.
Topsy and the Electric Chair
1888 – 1890 · New York
Edison's smear campaign against AC reaches grotesque proportions. He finances public electrocutions of stray animals and lobbies for AC to power the electric chair, hoping to associate alternating current with death. The first electric chair execution of William Kemmler in 1890 goes horribly wrong. It takes eight minutes. The war is being fought with propaganda and suffering.
Off the Grid
Tesla tore up his Westinghouse royalty contract when Westinghouse faced bankruptcy in 1891. Those royalties — $2.50 per AC horsepower — would eventually have been worth an estimated $12 million (over $300 million today). He did it because Westinghouse was the only man who believed in him when no one else would. It was the most financially devastating act of loyalty in the history of technology.
1893 – 1899 · The Triumph
The White City and Niagara
He lit the World's Fair. He harnessed Niagara Falls. Then he started hearing signals from space.
1893: Tesla and Westinghouse light the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago with AC power — 100,000 incandescent lamps powered by twelve generators. 27 million visitors see the future. Edison is humiliated. In 1895, the Edward Dean Adams Power Station at Niagara Falls begins generating AC power, transmitting it 26 miles to Buffalo — the world's first large-scale AC power plant. Tesla's system won. By 1896, he is demonstrating wireless energy transmission, X-ray imaging, and radio-controlled boats. In 1899, he moves to Colorado Springs and builds the largest Tesla coil ever constructed, generating 12 million volts and artificial lightning bolts 135 feet long. He also claims to receive radio signals from Mars.
Scene 24
filmed
World's Columbian Exposition
AC Wins
The White City
May 1, 1893 · Chicago
President Cleveland presses a button. One hundred thousand lightbulbs ignite simultaneously. The White City blazes with Tesla's alternating current. Twenty-seven million people will visit the fair. They see the future of electricity, and it isn't Edison's. AC wins. The war is over.
Niagara Falls
November 16, 1896 · Niagara Falls, NY
The switch is thrown. AC power from Niagara Falls reaches Buffalo, 26 miles away. Tesla's childhood dream — he told his uncle at age nine that he would harness the falls — is realized. The Adams Power Station uses his patents. Every power grid on Earth will eventually use his system.
The Colorado Experiments
May – November 1899 · Colorado Springs
Tesla builds a 142-foot tower and the world's largest Tesla coil. He generates 12 million volts and 135-foot artificial lightning bolts. He accidentally blows out the El Paso Electric Company's generator and plunges Colorado Springs into darkness. He also claims to detect structured radio signals from space — probably Jupiter's radiation belts.
1900 – 1915 · The Unraveling
Wardenclyffe
His grandest vision. His greatest failure. A tower that could have given free energy to the world — if J.P. Morgan hadn't pulled the funding.
Tesla convinced J.P. Morgan to invest $150,000 in Wardenclyffe Tower on Long Island — a facility for wireless communication and, Tesla secretly hoped, wireless power transmission. Construction began in 1901. When Morgan learned Tesla's true goal was free wireless energy — not a commercial communication system — he withdrew funding. "If anyone can draw on the power, where do we put the meter?" The tower was never completed. Tesla's mental health deteriorated. He developed severe OCD symptoms, an obsession with the number 3, and a pathological aversion to round objects and human hair. Wardenclyffe was demolished in 1917 to pay debts. It was the turning point from which Tesla never recovered.
"Where Do We Put the Meter?"
1903 · J.P. Morgan's Office, New York
Morgan discovers Tesla's true plan: free wireless energy for the entire world, broadcast from a single tower. There is no business model. There is no way to charge customers. Morgan pulls the funding. Tesla begs in letters for years. Morgan never responds again. The dream of free energy dies in a banker's office.
The Nobel Snub
November 1915 · Stockholm
The New York Times reports that Tesla and Edison will share the Nobel Prize in Physics. Neither receives it. The prize goes to the Braggs for X-ray crystallography. Rumor persists that Tesla refused to share the stage with Edison. Neither man ever won the Nobel Prize. The committee may have simply lost its nerve.
Wardenclyffe Demolished
July 4, 1917 · Shoreham, Long Island
The unfinished tower is dynamited and sold for scrap to pay Tesla's $20,000 hotel debt. The explosives echo across Long Island. Tesla, by now living in a series of increasingly shabby hotels, does not attend. His greatest ambition collapses into rubble and metal scrap.
Off the Grid
Marconi won the 1909 Nobel Prize for radio, using 17 of Tesla's patents. Tesla sued and won — but not until 1943, months after his death. The US Supreme Court ruled that Tesla, not Marconi, held priority on the fundamental radio patents. He was vindicated posthumously. He was also too dead to collect anything.
1915 – 1943 · The Twilight
The Pigeon and the Death Ray
He talked about death rays and wireless energy weapons. He fed pigeons in Bryant Park. The line between genius and madness blurred until it vanished.
Tesla's final three decades were a slow descent into poverty, eccentricity, and obscurity. He moved between New York hotels, always stiffing the bill when he moved on. He claimed to have invented a "death ray" particle beam weapon capable of destroying 10,000 enemy aircraft at a distance of 250 miles — he tried to sell it to the US War Department, the UK, the USSR, and Yugoslavia. All declined. He developed an obsessive love for a particular white pigeon in Bryant Park, claiming "I loved that pigeon as a man loves a woman." He gave annual birthday press conferences where he announced increasingly fantastical inventions. He died on January 7, 1943, in Room 3327 of the Hotel New Yorker — alone, surrounded by pigeons and papers.
The Death Ray Press Conference
July 1934 · Hotel New Yorker
On his 78th birthday, Tesla announces a "teleforce" weapon — a particle beam that can bring down aircraft at 250 miles. The press calls it a death ray. The military shows polite interest. Nothing comes of it. The FBI will seize his papers after his death specifically looking for these designs.
The White Pigeon
c. 1937 · Bryant Park, New York
Tesla walks to Bryant Park every day to feed pigeons. One white pigeon becomes his sole companion. "I loved that pigeon as a man loves a woman, and she loved me. When that pigeon died, something went out of my life." The greatest electrical engineer in history, reduced to a lonely old man talking to birds.
Room 3327
January 7, 1943 · Hotel New Yorker
A maid enters Room 3327 despite the "Do Not Disturb" sign. Tesla is dead on the bed. He was 86. The man who invented the power system lighting every building in Manhattan died in a $7-a-night hotel room. The FBI seizes his papers within hours. The Alien Property Custodian takes custody, even though Tesla was a US citizen.
1943 – Present · The Resurrection
The Cult of Tesla
He was forgotten for half a century. Then the internet found him.
For decades after his death, Tesla was a footnote. Edison got the credit. Marconi got the radio. The textbooks barely mentioned him. Then the internet happened. The Oatmeal's 2012 comic "Why Nikola Tesla Was the Greatest Geek Who Ever Lived" went viral and raised $1.4 million to buy the Wardenclyffe site. Elon Musk named his electric car company after him. The SI unit of magnetic flux density bears his name. The narrative flipped: Tesla became the internet's patron saint of underappreciated genius, the romantic figure who wanted to give the world free energy but was crushed by capitalism. The truth, as always, is more complicated and more interesting than the myth.
The Supreme Court Ruling
June 21, 1943 · Washington, D.C.
Six months after Tesla's death, the US Supreme Court rules in Tesla's favor in the radio patent dispute, invalidating Marconi's key patent. Tesla invented radio. The ruling comes too late for him to know, and too obscurely for the public to notice. Marconi's name stays in the textbooks for another fifty years.
The Internet Discovers Tesla
2012 · The Oatmeal / Indiegogo
Matthew Inman's webcomic reaches 100 million readers. A crowdfunding campaign raises $1.4 million to save Wardenclyffe. Tesla becomes the internet's favorite underdog. The man who died alone becomes the most beloved scientist of the digital age — seventy years too late.