Rebuilt, Tesla's house (parish hall) in
Smiljan,
Croatia, where he was born, and the rebuilt church, where his father served. During the
Yugoslav Wars, several of the buildings were severely damaged by fire. They were restored and reopened in 2006.
[14]
Tesla's baptismal record, 28 June 1856
Nikola Tesla was born on 10 July [
O.S. 28 June] 1856 into a
Serb family in the village of
Smiljan,
Austrian Empire (modern-day
Croatia[15]).
[16][17] His father, Milutin Tesla, was an
Orthodox priest.
[19][20][21]Tesla's mother, Đuka Tesla (
née Mandić), whose father was also an Orthodox priest,
[16]:10 had a talent for making home craft tools, mechanical appliances, and the ability to memorize
Serbian epic poems. Đuka had never received a formal education. Nikola credited his
eidetic memory and creative abilities to his mother's genetics and influence.
[10][22] Tesla's progenitors were from western Serbia, near Montenegro.
[16]:12
Tesla was the fourth of five children. He had an older brother named Dane and three sisters, Milka, Angelina and Marica. Dane was killed in a horse-riding accident when Nikola was five. In 1861, Tesla attended the "Lower" or "Primary" School in Smiljan where he studied German, arithmetic, and religion.
[24]In 1862, the Tesla family moved to
Gospić, Austrian Empire, where Tesla's father worked as a pastor. Nikola completed "Lower" or "Primary" School, followed by the "Lower Real Gymnasium" or "Normal School."
[25]
In 1870, Tesla moved to
Karlovac,
[26] to attend school at the
Higher Real Gymnasium, where he was profoundly influenced by a math teacher Martin Sekulić.
[16]:32[27] The classes were held in German, as it was a school within the Austro-Hungarian Military Frontier.
[28] Tesla was able to perform integral calculus in his head, which prompted his teachers to believe that he was cheating.
[29] He finished a four-year term in three years, graduating in 1873.
[16]:33
In 1873, Tesla returned to his birthtown, Smiljan. Shortly after he arrived, Tesla contracted
cholera; he was bedridden for nine months and was near death multiple times. Tesla's father, in a moment of despair, promised to send him to the best engineering school if he recovered from the illness
[26][27] (his father had originally wanted him to enter the priesthood).
[30]
In 1874, Tesla evaded being drafted into the
Austro-Hungarian Army in Smiljan
[31] by running away to
Tomingaj, near
Gračac. There, he explored the mountains in hunter's garb. Tesla said that this contact with nature made him stronger, both physically and mentally.
[27] He read many books while in Tomingaj, and later said that
Mark Twain's works had helped him to miraculously recover from his earlier illness.
[26]
In 1875, Tesla enrolled at
Austrian Polytechnic in
Graz,
Austria, on a
Military Frontier scholarship. During his first year, Tesla never missed a lecture, earned the highest grades possible, passed nine exams
[26][27] (nearly twice as many required
[16]), started a Serbian culture club,
[27] and even received a letter of commendation from the dean of the technical faculty to his father, which stated, "Your son is a star of first rank."
[16]Tesla claimed that he worked from 3 a.m. to 11 p.m., no Sundays or holidays excepted.
[26] He was "mortified when [his] father made light of [those] hard won honors." After his father's death in 1879,
[31] Tesla found a package of letters from his professors to his father, warning that unless he were removed from the school, Tesla would be killed through overwork.
[26] During his second year, Tesla came into conflict with Professor Poeschl over the
Gramme dynamo, when Tesla suggested that commutators weren't necessary. At the end of his second year, Tesla lost his scholarship and became addicted to gambling.
[26][27] During his third year, Tesla gambled away his allowance and his tuition money, later gambling back his initial losses and returning the balance to his family. Tesla said that he "conquered [his] passion then and there," but later he was known to play billiards in the US. When exam time came, Tesla was unprepared and asked for an extension to study, but was denied. He never graduated from the university and did not receive grades for the last semester.
[31]
In December 1878, Tesla left Graz and severed all relations with his family to hide the fact that he dropped out of school.
[31] His friends thought that he had drowned in the
Mur River.
[32] Tesla went to
Maribor (now in
Slovenia), where he worked as a draftsman for 60 florins a month. He spent his spare time playing cards with local men on the streets.
[31] In March 1879, Milutin Tesla went to Maribor to beg his son to return home, but Nikola refused.
[33] Nikola suffered a
nervous breakdown at around the same time.
[32]
On 24 March 1879, Tesla was returned to Gospić under police guard for not having a residence permit. On 17 April 1879, Milutin Tesla died at the age of 60 after contracting an unspecified illness
[34] (although some sources say that he died of a stroke
[35]). During that year, Tesla taught a large class of students in his old school, Higher Real Gymnasium, in Gospić.
[34]
In January 1880, two of Tesla's uncles put together enough money to help him leave Gospić for
Prague where he was to study. Unfortunately, he arrived too late to enroll at
Charles-Ferdinand University; he never studied Greek, a required subject; and he was illiterate in
Czech, another required subject. Tesla did, however, attend lectures at the university, although, as an auditor, he did not receive grades for the courses.
[36][37][38]
In 1881, Tesla moved to
Budapest to work under Ferenc Puskás at a
telegraph company, the Budapest Telephone Exchange. Upon arrival, Tesla realized that the company, then under construction, was not functional, so he worked as a draftsman in the Central Telegraph Office instead. Within a few months, the Budapest Telephone Exchange became functional and Tesla was allocated the chief electrician position.
[39]During his employment, Tesla made many improvements to the Central Station equipment and claimed to have perfected a telephone
repeateror
amplifier, which was never patented nor publicly described.
[26]
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