What about his homeland(s)?īack home, after the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia was established following the Axis defeat, Tesla was venerated as the country’s brightest mind. He and his legacy soon fell into near-complete obscurity.Ī renewed interest by the likes of Hollywood in the early 2000s - with his character being played by other superstar celebrities such as David Bowie - and Elon Musk naming his electric car company after Tesla did find him a new, youthful fanbase more than a century after the height of his fame. Increasingly frail in his old age to the point of appearing emaciated, Tesla died alone at Hotel New Yorker at the age of 86 in 1943, in the midst of World War II. The cult-like interest was additionally fed by some of his more outrageous claims, like that he eventually came up with a design for a radio-waves-based weapon that could destroy 'tens of thousands of enemy aeroplanes' in one fell swoop.
The notebooks he kept in his later years while living the life of a recluse in Hotel New Yorker and enjoying the company of pigeons still fascinate people to this day. Nikola Tesla, noted scientist and inventor, is interviewed on his 79th birthday in New York, 10 July 1935 AP/AP
