Nikola Tesla was born in what is now Croatia on July 10, 1856 and died on January 7, 1943.

He was an engineer known for designing the alternating-current (AC) electric system, which
is still the predominant electrical system used across the world today. He also created the
"Tesla coil," which is still used in radio technology. He arrived to the United States in 1884
and briefly worked with Thomas Edison.

Guglielmo Marconi, the first Marquis of Marconi in Italy was born on April 25, 1874, and
died on July 20, 1937. He was an Italian inventor and electrical engineer known for his
pioneering work on long-distance radio transmission and for his development of Marconi's
law. He contributed to the development of radiotelegraph system, and shared the 1909 Nobel
Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand Braun "in recognition of their contributions to the
development of wireless telegraphy".

Tesla discovered that with his coils, he could transmit and receive powerful radio signals
when they were tuned to resonate at the same frequency. When a coil is tuned to a signal of
a particular frequency, it literally magnifies the incoming electrical energy through resonant
action. By early 1895, Tesla was ready to transmit a signal 50 miles to West Point, New
York... but in that same year, disaster struck. A fire consumed Tesla's lab, destroying his
work. The timing could not have been worse because in England, a young Italian
experimenter named Guglielmo Marconi had been hard at work building a device for wireless
telegraphy. The young Marconi had taken out the first wireless telegraphy patent in England
in 1896. His device had only a two-circuit system, which some said could not transmit "across
a pond." Later Marconi set up long-distance demonstrations, using a Tesla oscillator to
transmit the signals across the English Channel.

Some people still believe that Marconi actually invented the radio. But he did not, and it has
taken over a century to know the truth about this issue.

A patent battle between Tesla and Marconi went on for years. Marconi died in 1937. Tesla
died in 1943 and six months after his death the US Supreme Court ruled that all of Marconi’s
radio patents were invalid and awarded the patents for radio to Tesla. So, for the past years,
we have still believed that Marconi invented the radio. Few actually know of Tesla’s radio
inventions. He is well known, but for his strange experiments with high voltage, lightning,
and the claim he had invented not only an electrical “death ray” but a way to transmit
electrical power wirelessly.

Marconi’s real contributions are more engineering and commercial than theoretical. He took
the basic ideas and inventions of others and improved upon them and made them practical
business successes. Tesla was almost the opposite. He created original ideas and proved them
mathematically and physically, patenting some and not others. Some of his best ideas like
the AC induction motor was a commercial success that brought him fame but not riches.
Marconi, of course, was fabulously rich.

The inescapable fact is that Marconi in his basic patent hit upon something that had eluded
the best brains of the time working on the problem of wireless communication--Clerk
Maxwell and Sir Oliver Lodge and Nikola Tesla. Certainly, the great eminence of Clerk
Maxwell and Sir Oliver Lodge, and Nikola Tesla in the field in which Marconi was working
is not questioned. The fact is that Marconi created something that these scientists could not
conceive.