Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) emerg-ed from a Serbian family in a remote Croatian village to become a world-famous inventor at the age of 32, when he sold his patent rights to a system of alternating-current (AC) dynamos, transformers, and motors to George Westinghouse. By developing a motor that converted AC into motive power, Tesla laid the groundwork for today's electrical geography. Before his inventions, electric power lingered as an isolated, local utility, available only at great expense through Thomas Edison's direct-current (DC) system. The deal between Tesla and Westinghouse led to a showdown between the DC approach and the AC system-the latter of which eventually won out.

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