March 19, 1907 – Nikola Tesla Wins Military Contract

Just as Dr. Nikola Tesla was sitting down to write a letter to the editor of The New York Times explaining that they had mistakenly stated he “attained no practical results with my dirigible wireless torpedo,” he received a telegram from Washington, D.C., on the very topic. Earlier that month, he had given a display of his new design for warfare: a remotely controlled torpedo with nearly any amounts of explosives that could be directed into the underbelly of a warship from the safety outside cannon-range. Tesla’s display had been a simple bobbing engine in water, but he had controlled it remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves rather than a physical connection such as wires. Ultimately, however, the exhibition would prove underwhelming, so much so that the attending newspaperman from the Times had taken it as a failure.

Tesla finished his letter, also commenting on the possibilities of wave-energy as a weapon itself, provided humanity’s calculations of the Earth’s diameter was accurate, which it would be as soon as his tower at Wardenclyffe was completed. He wrote, “My wireless plant will enable me to determine it within fifty feet or less, when it will be possible to rectify many geodetical data and make such calculations as those referred to with greater accuracy.” The telegram from Washington, however, would prove a distraction from his experiments as a summons to discuss with President Theodore Roosevelt (himself once Assistant Secretary of the Navy) who wished to see more about these radio-guided torpedoes. In an era where nations were spending millions, even billions, on massive Dreadnaughts and battleships of seemingly impossible size, a small, cheap defensive weapon would prove far more progressive.

Tesla met with Roosevelt, and the president put him in charge of developing the weapon for the Navy. His tower at Wardenclyffe would be mothballed, but the money was enough to keep him from his overwhelming debts. His assistants and Navy overseers found great difficulty in working with Tesla; some said in awe of his genius, others that he was plainly mad. Despite official difficulties, Tesla produced a working model by 1910, and the Navy was well stocked with defensive measures of long-range wireless torpedoes by Wilson’s election in 1912. During Wilson’s term and the start of the First World War, the feared German U-boat would serve as Tesla’s next project: using waves to detect the position of hiding submarines. Using his old research on frequencies, he developed methods of detection both through sound waves as well as those sub-sonic. He would be hailed as a hero, saving hundreds of lives and sparing millions of tons of material from German predators by sensing them and then attacking at long-range torpedoes before they could attack.

Most notably, however, would be his advances in the wave-energy weapons he had mentioned in letters years before, such as his 1908 letter to the editor of the Times stating, “Even now wireless power plants could be constructed by which any region of the globe might be rendered uninhabitable without subjecting the population of other parts to serious danger or inconvenience.” When Wardenclyffe and several other towers were functional, Tesla managed his calculations for geodetical data as well as those necessary for precision strikes. Once America entered the war in 1917, it was ended quickly as Tesla’s towers proved capable of destroying the German trenches with the “bolts of Thor.” Continued use pounded Germany to utter defeat as whole sections of a city could be destroyed with a single blast.

The 1920s would stand as a time of excitement with an undercurrent of fear that these towers, which were quickly emulated across Europe and Asia, would be used to bring about the downfall of man. Although there would be diplomatic close calls, the next two decades would be roughly quiet until Hitler, the Fuhrer of Germany, used his newly constructed towers in literal blitzkriegs. The United States attempted to stay out of the war and protected by its “electrical wall of fire” built by Los Angeles engineer Charles H. Harris, but it proved as impractical as Tesla had long declared when the Empire of Japan made surprise attacks on naval bases at Midway, Pearl Harbor, and along the West Coast.

Tesla himself would die in the middle of the war on January 7, 1943, from heart failure at age 86. Many said that his death was really from a broken heart as he saw what humanity had done with his weapons. His room in the New Yorker Hotel overlooked much of the rubble and blackened harbor water from where thor-bolts had struck in the ongoing and devastating Second World War.


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In reality, the United States Navy politely turned down the inventor’s offering of remote-controlled torpedoes. Tesla wrote “The time is not yet ripe for the telautomatic art” in his letter to the Times, one of many attempting to explain why his wild concepts were not understood. He continued work at Wardenclyffe, though debts and legal battles over his radio patent would eventually force him to give it up. On June 30, 1908, a mysterious explosion in Tunguska, Russia, would destroy 80 million trees covering 830 square miles with a force not to be seen again until the Castle Bravo thermonuclear bomb test in 1954. Some suspect the explosion was the work of Tesla experimenting haphazardly with wave-energy from Wardenclyffe, while other theories suggest an airburst meteor, a rare meteorological event, or even black holes.

July 23, 1897 – Tesla Renegotiates his Contract

Having immigrated to the United States in 1884 with little more than a letter of introduction in his pocket, Serbian Nikola Tesla would change the world with his inventive genius. He had worked in France with the Continental Edison Company, and now in America, he worked with Edison himself to improve the great American inventor's direct current generators. Tesla believed he was promised $50,000 if he could solve inefficiencies, which he did, but Edison assured him that the agreement was merely a joke, and the Serbian was paid $18 a week. Another argument over money would cause Tesla to quit and venture out on his own.

Tesla Electric Lighting & Manufacture allowed him to work on his own projects such as X-ray research, radio transmission, and inventing the “Tesla coil”, but money was difficult to come by. His major development was pushing his “alternating current” generator, which allowed for long-distance transmission of electricity far more efficiently than Edison's DC. Tesla joined forces with the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing company, providing his generators to their electrification program.

Competition between Westinghouse and Edison erupted in what is often called the “War of the Currents.” While AC was logically the superior technology, Edison would not give up his monopoly of having short-range power plants on every block. Each company launched enormous public relations and advertising campaigns, the most famous being Edison's display of the dangers of alternating current by electrocuting an elephant. Eventually, AC would win out, but the cost of the war would be disastrous. Edison had other companies to fall back on, but Westinghouse was ruined.

In 1897, Westinghouse met with Tesla to tell him of his company's financial problems. Tesla, who had always appreciated Westinghouse's faith in his ideas about alternating current and Niagara Falls, sat back in his chair to ponder how to offer help. His royalties on each kilowatt generated was costing Westinghouse a fortune, and he could give great aid to his friend if he were to waive them. Instead of tearing up his contract outright, Tesla offered a ten-year pause on payment. Westinghouse was delighted to take the deal.

The next decade were lean years for Tesla. He set up his laboratory at Colorado Springs, investigating the ionosphere and inventing his Teslascope. In 1900, he began a radio-transmission tower at Wardenclyffe to achieve trans-Atlantic contact, but his time and money was consumed in an ever-escalating legal battle with Guglielmo Marconi, the showman who had absconded many of Tesla's radio patents. By 1907, Tesla was nearly bankrupt, but Westinghouse came through with his promise of the return of Tesla's overdue patents. Armed with extra funds, Tesla was able to achieve legal victory with Marconi handing over patents and back-payment. Eventually the two would be rectified when they received a joint Nobel Prize in 1909. Marconi would take over Tesla's public operations, working out an agreement that would allow both to profit in the growing radio technology.

Tesla, meanwhile, would return to his well funded laboratories. As World War I approached, Tesla, Westinghouse, and Marconi would present new weapon ideas to the US Army. Radio-controlled torpedoes, RADAR, and a “peace ray” that used teleforce to destroy any incoming airplanes all came into development by America's introduction to the war in 1917. By the end of the war, the US Army was beginning experiments with ion-propelled electrically-based planes that would be the short-range jets of the 1930s. Long-range broadcast would allow the public air travel of the 1950s to surge, eclipsing trains worldwide with cigar-shaped flying ships.

In the 1920s, Tesla would turn his attention to field theory. After much work, on his 81st birthday, Tesla announced his “dynamic theory of gravity.” The theory would override much of the work of Einstein's Theory of Relativity, which would prove to be a mathematical illusion more than hard physics. While the science was established early, it would not be until the 1960s that effectively engineered gravity-drives would propel American astronauts to the Moon and, in 1986, to Mars.

Tesla would die January 7, 1943, over a year after his Tesla ray would prove defensive capabilities in the Battle of Pearl Harbor by destroying the second and third waves of Japanese attackers. The world would mourn its greatest inventor.


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In reality, Tesla simply offered to tear up his contract with Westinghouse. The scientific genius was not known for his business-savvy, and the exceptionally generous offer cost him millions. Westinghouse, being a businessman, did not talk Tesla out of his offer, which saved his company.

Tesla would struggle with money and lack of recognition through the rest of his life. Marconi dominated the radio industry while Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower would fail from lack of funds and directions. It would not be until 1943 that the US Supreme Court finally awarded Tesla his patents (arguably as a way to avoid payment demanded by Marconi). The US Army and Navy would ignore his suggestions at weapon development, even though Tesla's newspaper editorials would correctly predict the length of the war and the failure of the League of Nations. Gradually, Tesla would descend into madness and die in severe debt and obscurity.