http://www.neuronet.pitt.edu/~bogdan/tesla/
http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/index.html

A Serbian-American inventor and researcher who discovered the rotating magnetic field, the basis of most alternating-current machinery.

In 1885, George Westinghouse, head of the Westinghouse Electric Company in Pittsburgh, bought the patent rights to Tesla's polyphase system of alternating-current dynamos, transformers, and motors. The transaction precipitated a titanic power struggle between Edison's direct-current systems and the Tesla-Westinghouse alternating-current approach, which eventually won out. Tesla even gave exhibitions in his laboratory in which he lighted lamps without wires by allowing electricity to flow through his body, to allay fears of alternating current.

In early 1900, Tesla made what he regarded as his most important discovery, terrestrial stationary waves. He proved that the Earth could be used as a conductor and would be responsive to electrical vibrations of a certain frequency. He lighted 200 lamps without wires from a distance of 25 miles and created man-made lightning, producing flashes measuring 135 feet.

In 1891 he invented the Tesla coil, an induction coil widely used today in radio and television sets and other electronic equipment. He has over 700 patents.