Nikola Tesla was a Yugoslav-American inventor who pioneered in radio and invented the alternating-current motor. He also invented a system that made the universal transmission and distribution of electricity possible. He was born in Smiljan, Croatia, on July 10, 1856. His father was a clergyman of the Serbian Orthodox Church and his mother an expert needle worker and an inventor of home implements. Tesla received a technical training at the polytechnic school in Graz and the University of Prague. In 1881 he began work for the newly founded telephone company in Budapest, and in late 1882 he joined the Continental Edison Company in Paris. Tesla went to the United States in 1