He grew up to be over six feet tall, a fashionable dresser, and friends with some of the most famous Americans of his time. But he started life in a corner of the Austrian Empire… Early Life When Nikola Tesla was born, the Austrian Empire still existed. An ethnic Serb, he came into the world in modern-day Croatia on July 10th, 1856. His birth seemed to foreshadow his life’s work, as his mother was in labor during a massive lightning storm. The lightning that flashed during Tesla’s birth...
