Google Celebrated Tesla's Birthday by Drawing its 'G' as a Tesla Coil

The Memorial Center of Nikola Tesla is rated as the number one place to visit on tripadvisor, if you happen to find yourself at Tesla's birthplace, Smiljan, Croatia. Hold off on this trip perhaps until the pandemic passes. The museum is dedicated to one of the greatest scientific minds to contribute to the business of electricity, born on July 10, 1856. Tesla is estimated to hold some three hundred patents, although a few are lost to time, and you can find a list of most of them from twenty-six countries on a Wikipedia page.

Tesla was a man of many accomplishments, including the rotating magnetic field, the AC motor, the Tesla coil, and according to the U.S. Supreme Court, the invention of the radio. Tesla sent his first wireless recording from his lab in New York City to a boat on the Hudson River some twenty-five miles away in 1897. He invented all that we associate with the radio including tuners and antennas, but another inventor, Guglielmo Marconi, took the credit. By the time the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1943 that the patent filed by Tesla took precedence, Marconi already was known as the father of the radio. Justice was particularly slow in this case as Tesla had died earlier that year.

It's no wonder that a genius inventor of Tesla's renown has become embedded in popular culture in many ways. In fact, if you go online and google Tesla, the first information and ads that pop up all have to do with cars, thanks to Elon Musk and his popular electric cars sold under the brand of that name. Indeed, now there's an electric truck manufacturer named Nikola. Google on July 10, 2009 celebrated Tesla's birthday by displaying a google doodle on its search home page showing the 'G' as a Tesla coil.