Here’s a timeline of Nikola Tesla’s life, told as a “circuit of invention”—each event like a component in a grand electrical system, highlighting Tesla’s milestones as stages in building a revolutionary energy network.

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⚡ Nikola Tesla: A Circuit of Invention

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🔋 Power Source: Birth of a Spark

1856 – Smiljan, Austrian Empire (now Croatia)
Tesla is born at midnight during a lightning storm—his mother reportedly said he would be “a child of light.” His mother, an inventor of household tools, and his Serbian Orthodox priest father inspired both creativity and discipline.

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🔌 Current Flows: Education and Vision

1875–1878 – Graz University of Technology, Austria
Tesla becomes obsessed with electricity, memorizing entire books and sketching devices in his mind. He studies alternating current (AC), a concept that will later define his legacy. However, he never completes his degree.

1881 – Budapest, Hungary
While walking with a friend, Tesla has a vision of a rotating magnetic field—laying the groundwork for the AC induction motor.

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⚙️ Resistance and Circuit Breaks: Early Struggles

1884 – New York City
Tesla arrives in the U.S. with only four cents and a letter of introduction to Thomas Edison. He begins working for Edison but resigns after disputes over pay and fundamentally different electrical visions—DC vs AC.

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⚡ Inductive Breakthrough: The AC Revolution

1887–1888 – Invention of the AC Induction Motor
Tesla patents his motor and catches the attention of industrialist George Westinghouse, who backs him in the famous War of Currents against Edison. Tesla’s AC system triumphs.

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🌐 Network Expansion: Lighting the World

1893 – World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago
Tesla and Westinghouse light the World’s Fair with AC power—a global showcase of the future. Tesla also demonstrates wireless lighting and the Tesla coil.

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📡 Signal Transmission: Wireless Dreams

1899 – Colorado Springs
Tesla builds a laboratory and creates man-made lightning. He begins experiments in wireless energy transmission and claims to detect cosmic signals—possibly the first attempt to communicate with extraterrestrials.

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🗼 High-Frequency Ambitions: The Wardenclyffe Tower

1901–1906 – Shoreham, Long Island
With funding from J.P. Morgan, Tesla constructs a massive tower aimed at transmitting free energy wirelessly around the globe. But the project is abandoned due to financial trouble and lack of commercial viability. The tower is later dismantled.

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🧠 Overload and Obscurity: The Decline

1910s–1930s
Tesla continues to file patents (over 300 in total) and proposes radical ideas like death rays, earthquake machines, and bladeless turbines. Though increasingly seen as eccentric, he never stops imagining.

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🔚 Circuit Grounded: Final Years

1943 – New York City
Tesla dies alone in Room 3327 of the New Yorker Hotel. He is 86. Despite dying penniless and overlooked, his work lives on—powering the modern world.

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🌀 Aftershock: Legacy and Resurgence

• 1960 – The unit of magnetic flux density is named the tesla (T) in his honor.
• 21st Century – Tesla’s name surges in popular culture. The electric car company Tesla Motors, founded by Elon Musk, revives global interest in his genius.

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⚙️ Tesla’s Circuit, Still Live

Tesla’s legacy isn’t just about electricity—it’s about unfiltered imagination, radical independence, and the belief that science should serve humanity. His life’s “circuit” remains open, inspiring innovators to complete what he once envisioned: a world lit by ideas.