The current war. Unrevealed history

Brief History of Nicola Tesla

Nicola Tesla was born on 10 July 1856 in Smiljan, Croatia. Tesla is from a family of Serbian origin. His father was an Orthodox priest. His mother does not go to school but is very intelligent. As he matured, he displayed great imagination and creativity as well as a touch of poetry.

He invented the rotating magnetic field and obtained a patent. Tesla also developed a three-phase transmission system. He emigrated from Croatia to the United States in 1884 and worked at Edison Electronics. Patent alternating current dynamo, transformer, and motor sold to George Westinghouse.

Tesla coils, magnifying transmitters, Tesla turbines, shadows, the radio, oscillators, electric discharge tubes, original X-ray imaging, neon lamp, induction motor, radio-controlled boat, alternating current were some of his inventions. He invented the Tesla coil in 1891, an inductive coil widely used in radio technology. He passed away in 1943 on January 7 in New York City.

Brief History of Thomas Alva Edison

Thomas Alva Edison was born on 11 Feb 1847 in Milan, United States. Edison was the seventh and last child of Samuel Edison and Nancy Elliott Edison. He had hearing problems at an early age, and deafness had a profound effect on his behavior and career, prompting many of his inventions.

He began his career in 1863 as a teenager in the telecommunications industry. Although he is best known for his invention of photography and incandescent lighting, Edison holds a world record with 1093 patents in various fields, including lighting and power, telephone and telegraph and audio recording. From his laboratories and workshops he invented the automatic telegraph, carbon telephone transmitter, the bulb, loudspeaker, film camera, gyroscope, electric automated printer, electronic voting recorder, alkaline battery, power system, and an experimental electric railway line. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial laboratory.

Before he died, he played a critical role in introducing the modern age of electricity in 1931. Edison passed away on October 18, 1931, at his home in Llewellyn Park, West Orange, New Jersey.

How did the current war begin?

At the end of the 19th century, three talented inventors, Thomas Edison, Nicola Tesla, and George Westinghouse, had a fight over direct current and alternating current. For their bitter dispute known as the “The current war”, Edison favored the direct current system, while Tesla and Westinghouse favored the alternating current system.

Edison, the most famous of the three, developed the world’s first practical bulb in the late 1870s and began building a system for generating and distributing electricity to businesses and homes. He opened his first power plant, New York City, in 1882.

Two years later, a young Serbian engineer named Tesla immigrated to the US and went to Edison for a job. Edison offered him a job, but first he had to develop direct current generators. He is then given the opportunity to recreate a direct current dynamo. They weren’t about his field and Edison promised Tesla a US $ 50,000 cash reward when it was completed. Tesla didn’t have the money to do his inventions, so he accepted the challenge and successfully completed it. But Edison did not give the money he promised. Tesla disappointed by this and quit his job in 1885 and worked with industrialist George Westinghouse.

After that with Westinghouse’s help, he was able to obtain a number of patents for alternating current technology. In 1888 he sold his patented electric motor to George Westinghouse for the US $ 60,000. His Westinghouse Electric company soon became a competitor for Edison.

Edison threatened by the increase in alternating current power, which is more economically distributed than direct current, Edison launched a campaign to discredit the alternating current and convince the public that it was dangerous. One of the most famous of these was the electrocution of a circus elephant called “Topsy” in Coney Island, New York. Edison, who was once an opponent of the sentence to death, but the fastest option and an alternating current power terminal are recommended. Using the idea, the electric chair was invented. In 1890, convicted William Kemmler became the first person to die in an electric chair.

The first electric chair, secretly designed by an electric salesman working under Edison, was powered by Westinghouse’s alternating current generator.

However, Edison’s attempt to discredit them failed. Westinghouse won the contract to supply electricity to the 1892 World’s Fair in Chicago. It defeated the rival General Electric Company, which was formed in 1893 with Edison’s company. Westinghouse also received an important contract to build alternating current generators for a hydropower plant at Niagara Falls. In 1896, the first hydroelectric plant was built and began to supply electricity to Buffalo, New York, about 20 miles away.

This victory was regarded as the unofficial end of the current war and was dominated by the alternating current of the electricity industry.

Alfonso Gomez Rejon made a film based on this event, and you can watch the trailer below,