SOURCE: "Nikola Tesla," in Science, Vol. 127, No. 3307, May 16, 1958, pp. 1147-59.

In the following essay, Swezey provides an overview of Tesla's life, with an emphasis on his key inventions, and offers a detailed but non-technical discussion of those scientific discoveries.

At the stroke of midnight between the 9th and 10th of July, 1856, a son, Nikola, was born by candlelight to the Rev. Milutin and Djouka Tesla, in the tiny village of Smiljan, Lika, now part of Yugoslavia. The child's father was pastor of the local Serbian Orthodox church; his mother, though an accomplished needleworker and inventor of household devices, could neither read nor write. From this humble and seemingly unpropitious beginning, Nikola Tesla, driven by some strange, compulsive genius, grew to become a discoverer and inventor whose contributions were, within his lifetime, to change the life and industry of the whole world.

Mention any of today's applications of electricity...