Nikola Tesla
Born: Smiljan, Austrian Empire, Croatia
You don’t become the eponymous inspiration for Tesla without leaving an impressive trail behind you, and that can certainly be said for Nikola Tesla, who was born in 1856 in Smiljan, a small Croatian village back when the area was still part of the Austrian Empire. Tesla came from a line of Serbian Orthodox priests, his father and his maternal grandfather both having held the title. His earliest primary school years were spent in Smiljan, but the family soon moved to a nearby town called Gospić. Tesla attended high school at the Higher Real Gymnasium in Karlovac, where he first became interested in physics and demonstrations of electricity.
Tesla’s schooling went on for many years, and at one point, a professor was so concerned about how hard he worked himself (Tesla claimed he worked on his studies 20 hours a day, seven days a week) that he wrote Tesla’s father to warn him. When he eventually dropped out of school, Tesla hid the fact from his family for fear of their disappointment, though they found out either way. Around this time, Tesla experienced a nervous breakdown, and his father died of an unspecified illness.
Working his way back into his career, Tesla began teaching at his old school in Gospić, and in 1881 moved to Budapest, Hungary to work for the Budapest Telephone Exchange. This move precipitated a relocation to Paris to work for the Continental Edison Company. And in 1884 when his manager at Edison was transferred to the United States, he requested that Tesla go with him. Tesla immigrated to New York City that very same year. He left Edison soon after and opened his own company, Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing where he focused on advancements like alternating-current dynamos and radio technology, the latter of which he might be most known for (the Tesla coil, in particular).
Tesla moved around the U.S., from New York City to Colorado Springs to Long Island, and made friends with the likes of Mark Twain and Francis Marion Crawford. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1891, the very same year that he patented the Tesla coil. He died in 1937, leaving behind a legacy as one of the most famous immigrants in American history and most celebrated inventors of all time.