Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla was born in Smiljan, in what is now Croatia, the son of a Serbian Orthodox priest. He studied engineering in Graz and worked for telephone and electric companies in Budapest and Paris. In 1884 he arrived in New York and worked briefly for Thomas Edison but soon left after a dispute. In 1887 and 1888 he patented an induction motor and a system for generating and sending alternating current, which could carry electricity over long distances more efficiently than Edison's direct current. George Westinghouse bought his patents, and after a bitter rivalry, the so-called war of the currents, alternating current won; it lit the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and powered the first great hydroelectric plant at Niagara Falls in 1896. Tesla also invented the Tesla coil and worked on radio, remote control and wireless power, building a tall tower on Long Island for wireless transmission that he never finished. He had a remarkable memory and odd habits. He spent his last years alone in New York hotels and died poor in 1943.

Faith: Son of a Serbian Orthodox priest and raised in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Source: Wikipedia