Today marks the 153rd anniversary of the birth of a man who quite literally illuminated the world. Inventor of the radio, the AC power distribution system, the AC motor, wireless power transmission, the Tesla turbine, and a score of other technologies too numerous to list, Nikola Tesla was born on July 10, 1856, in the tiny village of Smiljan, which is now in Croatia. He died, impoverished, at the age of 86, on January 7, 1943, alone in a Manhattan hotel room, having contributed more fundamental technological innovations than any other person in the history of humanity.
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I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.
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