Tesla Times: When he reportedly did what, where, with whom.
A Serb Born in Croatia
1856, 9-10 July, born (at lightning stroke of midnight?).
1856-62 lives in Smiljan, Lika, western military district (Krajina), Austro-Hungarian Empire.
1861 death of his older and only brother Dane, 12.
1862 family moves to closest town, Gospic.
1862-66 attends elementary or 'normal' school in Gospic.
1866-70 attends Real Gymnasium in Gospic.
1870-73 lives at Rakovac 6 above his aunt & Col. "old war-horse".
1873 graduates Gimnazija Karlovac, Rakovac, Croatia.
1874 recovers from Cholera, escapes life as priest or officer.
1875 father sends him into hills to hide from army.
Becomes Continental
1875 accepted at k.k. (kaiserlich konigliche) Technischen Hochschule in Graz, Austria.
1875-78 attends "Joanneum" polytechnic (now Technische Universitat Graz (TUG)), Rechbauerstrasse 12.
1875, Sept, takes a room at Attemsgasse 8.**
1876 boards at Neugasse 10 (now Hans-Sachs-Gasse 10).
1877 boards at Attemsgasse 11 and Jahngasse 5.
1878 boards at Heinrichstrasse 11 (unbek.).
1878, spring, drops out of hochschule before 3rd year exams.
1878-79, lands first job, assistant engineer, Maribor, Slovenia.
1878, Sept-Nov, rooms on Tegetthofstrasse (Partisans Road since 1945), Maribor.**
1879, 24 March, police escort the "vagrant" Tesla from Maribor home to Gospic.**
1879 death of his father, Milutin.
1880, summer, audits classes at the Karl-Ferdinand University of Prague.
1880-81 rooms at Ve smeckach 13, Prague.**
1880-81 plays pool, spotting foes 48 of 100 points, at Narodni Kavarna (People's Cafe) on Vodickova St.**
1881, Jan, arrives in Budapest too early for job with Puskas brothers.
1881 Budapest Austrian Telegraph Office, engineer?
1881 Budapest Central Post Office, draftsman?
1881 American Telephone Company, repairman?
1881 Budapest power company, electrical engineer?
1881 Budapest Central Telephone Exchange, designer?
1881 mental breakdown?
1881 AC epiphany on walk with Antal Szigety in Budapest's Varosliget city park.
1882, April, Tivadar Puskas hires Tesla at Continental Edison Co., Paris.
1882, Charles Batchelor oversees Tesla at Edison lightbulb factory, Irvy-sur-Seine.
1882, May, Belgrade newspapers report Tesla's visit.
1883 works on DC generators for Electricit? de Strasbourg, Alsace.
** Dan Mrkich, "Nikola Tesla: The European Years, 1856-1884."
Becomes an American
1884, spring, lands in New York (4 cents in pocket).
1884 Thomas Edison hires Tesla to fix designs of DC dynamos.
1885 quits Edison's Etna Iron Works, 104 Goerck St.
1885 founds Electric Light & Manufacturing Co, Rahway, NJ.
1886-87, winter, digs ditches for $2/day.
1887, April, Peck and Brown fund the Tesla Electric Co.
1887, 30 April, Tesla files first patent.
1887, 10 May, old friend Antal Szigeti lands in NY.
1887-88 invents AC induction motor, 89 Liberty St, NY.
1888, 15 May, speech to American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE).
1888, 7 July, sells AC patents for $25,000, 150 shares in Westinghouse, plus $2.50/horsepower.
1888-89 trains Westinghouse engineers in Pittsburgh, PA.
1889 becomes US citizen.
1889 opens own lab on Grand Street.
1890, Aug 6, Prof. H. Brown "Westinghouses" ax-murderer Wm Kemmler at Auburn State Prison, NY.
1890, Nov, lights vacuum tube, wirelessly, with high-frequency coil.
1891 invents Tesla coil.
1891 first Westinghouse-Tesla engine installed at a Colorado mine.
1891, 20 May, speaks to AIEE at Columbia U.
1892 London lecture to Royal Institution of Electrical Engineers.
1892, Feb, mother Djouka (Mandic) dies.
1893 AC plant powers Chicago's Columbia Exposition.
1893, 1 May, President Grover Cleveland pushes button to light 100,000 lamps in Chicago's "City of Light".
1893, 24 Feb, lectures to the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia.
1893, 1 March, wireless remote-control boat in St. Louis.
1894 Tesla's AC powers Telluride and Cripple Creek, CO.
1895, 13 March, fire burns lab, 35 S 5th Ave (now ~539 West Broadway).
1895, 20 May, lands in Pulitzer's World after girl, 16, leaps from pie at JL Breese's studio, 5 W 16th St.
1895, July, earthquake at lab, 46 E Houston St.
1895 Century editor R.U. Johnson runs Tesla article by T.C. Martin and "Pudd'nhead Wilson" by Mark Twain.
1896, 19 July, tours Niagara Power House with George Westinghouse.
1896, 16 Nov, transmits electricity 26 miles from Niagara Falls to Buffalo, NY, first 3-phase AC power plant.
1897, April 6, lectures NY Academy of Sciences, 2 E 63rd St.
1898 first efficient-magnifier Tesla coil.
1898 high-tension conductor produces pressures of 100 million volts.
1898 Madison Square Garden demos teleautomat boat with 'borrowed mind" remote control.
1899 lights 200 bulbs wirelessly 26 miles from Pike's Peak.
1899-1900 discovers terrestrial stationary waves, Colorado Springs.
1900 100-foot discharge 'flashed a current around the globe'.
1900 J.P. Morgan buys 51% of Tesla tele patents for $150,000.
1901 builds "Radio City" at Wardenclyffe (Shoreham, Long Island).
1901, 12 Dec, Marconi beams a...Morse-code "S'' across the Atlantic.
1903, 15 July, NY Sun reports on Wardenclyffe's "blinding streaks of electricity."
1905 opens office at 165 Broadway (Now 1 Liberty Plaza).
1906 builds speedometers for Waltham Watch Co.
1907, 3 May, NY World reports Tesla's "magnifying transmitter" hits 25M horsepower.
1908 "Hugo Award" Gernsback meets Tesla, writes robot story "Ralph 124C 41+."
Bankruptcy
1909 G. Marconi, C. Maxwell & H. Hertz share Physics Nobel for radio.
1912 creditors repo equipment from Wardenclyffe.
1914 opens office in tallest skyscraper: Woolworth Building, 233 Broadway.
1915, 6 Oct, NYT falsely reports Edison and Tesla to share Nobel.
1915 Waldorf-Astoria's manager George Boldt demands back rent of $19,000.
1915 surrenders Wardenclyffe deed to Boldt.
1915 declares bankruptcy.
1917, 16 May, wins AIEE's Edison medal, flees to feed pigeons.
1917, 4 July, Navy explodes tower at Wardencliffe.
1918 Chicago turbine project with W.W. Wilhelm.
1922 his beloved pigeon dies at Hotel St. Regis, 2 E 55th St (5th Ave) #1607.
1924, 25 May, Hotel St. Regis sues Tesla for $3,299 in back rent.
1924 Sheriff's deputy serves debt liens on office, 8 W 40th St 20th floor.
1931, 20 July, "Tesla at 75" on cover of Time magazine.
1931, 18 Oct, Edison dies at 84.
1934 Scientific American pictures Tesla with "Colossus" a 2MV Van de Graaf generator Tesla Coil, now at Boston's Museum of Science.
1934, 11 July, NYT A1: "Tesla, at 78, Bares New 'Death Beam.'"
1935 Feb Tesla's pro-eugenics Liberty article edited by friend G. S. Viereck, a Nazi.
1937 hit by cab in Manhattan, but refuses care.
1937 honorary doctorate from Tesla's former hochschule in Graz.
193? experiments under 59th Street Bridge near 2nd Ave, NY.
1939 (Soviet) Amtorg Trading Corp pays Tesla $25,000.
1942 Governor Clinton Hotel, NY, "multi decade resistance box."
1942, July 8, birthday meeting with exiled King Peter II Karadjordjevic of Serbia.
1943, Jan, tries to send cash via messenger-boy Kerrigan to "Mr. Samuel Clemens."
1943, 5 Jan, admits last maid service, asks for no disturbances.
1943, 7 Jan, dies at 86 in New Yorker Hotel, #3327.
Posthumous
1943, 8 Jan, maid finds Tesla dead.
1943, 8 Jan, FBI seizes 80-trunk archive of Tesla's papers.
1943, 8 Jan, Tesla's nephew Sava Kosanovic finds Tesla's room emptied.
1943 body to Campbell's Funeral Parlors (Madison Ave & 81St).
1943 cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery, Ardsley, NY.
1943, 12 Jan, memorial at Cathedral of St. John the Divine, NYC.
1943, 13 Jan, service by Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava, 20 W 26th St.
1943, 21 June, U.S. Supreme Court reverses itself, favors Tesla radio patents over Marconi.
1943 John J. O'Neill publishes "Prodigal Genius."
1944 Bela Lugosi plays Romanian scientist/vampire "Armand Tesla" in "Return of the Vampire."
1944-46 "Project Nick" Brig. Gen. L.C. Craigie at USAFB Patterson attempts "Peace Ray."
1952 Tesla estate--shirts, suits, shoes & papers--sent to Belgrade.
1955 Tesla Museum opens in Belgrade, 51 Proleterskih brigada.
1956 100th anniversary, memorial erected in Smiljan by Grgo Antuna.
1958 Tesla's cremains sent to Belgrade.
1960 'Tesla' declared unit of magnetic induction by Intl. Cmsn. for Electrical Engineering, T = Wb/m2.
19?? NYC declares 40th St & 6th Ave "Nikola Tesla Corner."
1976 Tesla statue dedicated on Goat Island, Niagara Falls.
1976 Rev. Sun Myung Moon buys New Yorker Hotel for $5M as Unification Church HQ.
1978 Margaret Cheney publishes "Man Out of Time."
1980 Croat biopic "Secrets of Nikola Tesla" (Tajna Nikole Tesle) features Orson Welles as J.P. Morgan.
1981 monument by F. Krsinic erected in Gospic town square.
1991-95 Croat troops occupy Smiljan house, Serbs bomb Gospic.
1997 Tesla bust installed in Becton engineering hall at Yale, 15 Prospect St.
2000, 12 Dec, PBS airs "Tesla: Master of Lightning."
2001, 10 July, fans commemorate Tesla's birth by rededicating plaque on 34th Street wall of New Yorker Hotel.
