YACHT CHARTER CROATIA

Nikola Tesla (10 July 1856 – 7 January 1943) was one of the world's most original and greatest inventors and thinkers. Born an ethnic Serb in the small village of Smiljan, Croatia (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), he was a subject of the Austrian Empire by birth and later became an American citizen.

From 1875 to 1878 Tesla studied at the Polytechnic at Graz, and in 1880 he enrolled in the studies of natural philosophy at the Charles' University in Prague.

In the period 1881-82 he was employed at the Central Telegraph Office in Budapest. Here he began his career as inventor improving the voice amplifier for the telephone receiver and in February 1882 arrived on the idea of the rotating magnetic field.

In the middle of 1882 he travelled to Paris to work as an engineer for the Continental Edison Company. Tesla constructed his first induction motor in 1883 and immigrated to America in 1884 - arriving in New York with worldly goods totalling four cents, a pocket full of poems, carefully worked calculations for a flying machine, and a head full of strange dreams. Besides this Tesla had only letter of recommendation from Charles Batchelor, an inventor and close associate of Thomas Alva Edison. In the letter of recommendation to Thomas Edison, Batchelor wrote, "I know two great men and you are one of them; the other is this young man."

Edison hired Tesla to work for his Edison Machine Works. Tesla's work for Edison began with simple electrical engineering and quickly progressed to solving some of the company's most difficult problems.

Tesla was even offered the task of completely redesigning the Edison company's direct current generators.  Tesla was offered US$50,000 (about US$1.1 million today, adjusted for inflation) if he redesigned Edison's inefficient and breakdown-prone DC generator. Tesla agreed and worked for the better part of a year redesigning the dynamos, also adding new automatic controls of Tesla's own design. The new generator designs were a vast improvement over Edison's originals. In 1885, upon completing the job, when Tesla went to Edison to collect the $50,000 promised for the task, Edison replied, "Tesla, you don't understand our American humor." thus breaking his word. Tesla immediately resigned and left Edison. And Tesla was never paid.

Tesla, in need of work, eventually found himself digging ditches for a short period of time. In 1886, Tesla formed his own company, Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing.  On 30 July 1891, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States at the age of 35. Tesla soon established his own laboratory, where his inventive mind could be given free rein.