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| Date | Description |
| 1856. (10. July) | Nikola Tesla was born in the village of Smiljan near Gospić, as the fourth child of the Orthodox priest Milutin and his wife Georgina (Đuka)- Mandić. |
| 1861. | Completed the first grade of the elementary school in Smiljan. |
| 1862. - 1866. | The Tesla family moves to Gospić where Nikola Tesla continues his elementary education. |
| 1866. - 1870. | Tesla completes the first four grades in Gospić. In the free hours he practices will power and concentration. He uses his father's rich library. Beginnings of creative and innovative thinking. In Tesla's own words: "On one occasion, the novel Abafi' (Son of Aba) by a famous writer Josika came into my hands. This novel in a way awoke my lethargic will power and I started to practice self-restraint". |
| 1870. - 1873. | Continues education in the High School in Rakovac near Karlovac. Crucial influence of the teacher Martin Sekulić who taught mathematics and physics (Tesla graduates at the High School in Rakovac on 24 July). |
| 1873. - 1874. | Return to Gospić. Sick with cholera for 9 months. Father wanted him to be a priest, but Tesla is interested only in technical matters. Father agrees for him to study technology, and Tesla immediately recovers. |
| 1874. - 1875. | A year-long recuperation in Tomingaj near Gračac; thinks about inventions. |
| 1875. - 1878. | Enrolled at the High Technical School in Graz, learns 20 hours a day; gets highest grades; due to shortage of money wishes to end the study as soon as possible. Shows to Professor Poeschl the imperfection of Gramme machine without a commutator and brushes. |
| 1878. | Goes to Maribor. Works as an assistant engineer. |
| 1879. (March) | Returns to Gospić for vacation. For a certain time lectures as a student in the Gospić High School. |
| 1880. (January) | Continues to study in Prague, but is forced to interrupt studies due to lack of funds. |
1881. | Finds employment in Budapest in the Central Telegraph Office, thanks to family connections. Improves some devices and discovers methods for amplifying the voice in telephony. Invents the voice amplifier. |
| 1882. (February) | In Budapest during a walk with his friend Sigety comes upon the idea of a rotating magnetic field, and thereupon elaborates all types of electric motors. Draws the scheme of the electric motor by stick in the sand, the invention which he patented six years later in America. |
| 1882. (April) | Goes to Paris and works in Edison's subsidiary company where he is received by the Director Charles Batchellor. His field of work are direct current machines. He becomes a known expert. |
| 1883. | In Strasburg he works on automatic regulators of illumination and builds the first motor without the commutator. On the construction of a power plant he produced a two-phase induction motor which he demonstrated on 10 July. |
| 1884. | Returns to Paris. Unsuccessful in procuring funds for his constructions. Disappointed by lack of understanding in Europe and upon the recommendation of the director of Edison's company goes to the USA and works several months in Edison's company "Machine Works" in New York. At the beginning he was offered maintenance jobs for 18 dollars a week. Edison promised him a reward of 50,000 dollars if he improves the dynamo-machine. Several weeks after this verbal agreement, Tesla fulfilled his promise and asked of Edison his money. Edison replied that it was only a joke. Disappointed with the answer, Tesla leaves the job and the company. Conflict with Edison will last for years. |
| 1885. | Tesla sets up his own company for the production of electric-arc lamps (lamps with electrodes which produce a strong light by establishing an electric arc). |
| 1885. (March) | Files his first patent application - the improvement of arc lamps. This is followed by a line of patents about arc lamps and regulation of direct current generator and commutator. |
| 1885. (13. March) | Tesla's laboratory in New York burned down. In July a new laboratory was built and begins work. Tesla constructs a transmitter-receiver radio station. |
| 1885. (May) | Patent application for the regulator of dynamo-electric machines. |
| 1886. | During the economic crisis his company goes broke. He works on the New York sewage system. He is assisted by the director of Western Union for Europe, Professor William A. Antony, also a scientist. |
| 1886. (January - March) | Patent applications for dynamo-electric machine and thermo-magnetic motor |
| 1887. | Tesla works as an electrical fitter. In April he sets up his new company "Tesla Electric" and his laboratory; in May he files for patent the pyromagneto-electric generator; on 12 October he files patent applications for alternating current and transmission of electric energy. In all, he files applications for about 40 patents: the motor system, generator and transformer for the transmission of electric energy by means of two or more alternating currents. |
| 1888. | He holds a lecture in the American Institute of Electrical Engineers about the new system of electric motors and transformers; George Westinghouse buys out his patents. |
| 1889. | In autumn he goes to Paris to the International Exhibition; in June he files a patent applications for a method of operating electro-magnetic motors, for a method of obtaining direct current from alternating currents and for the armature for electric machines. At the end of the year he travels to Croatia where he stays until the beginning of 1890. |
| 1890. (May) | He gives a lecture in the American Society of Electric Engineers on "Experiments with very high frequency currents and their application in methods of artificial illumination". He files the patent applications for medium frequency generators and luminescent light sources. |
| 1891. | Tesla becomes and American citizen; He files applications for a number of patents in the area of high frequency currents and high voltage; on 20 May he gives a lecture with experiments on Columbia University in New York. He invented the coil, later called the Tesla coil, which is in broad use even today in televisions, radios and other electrical appliances. |
| 1892. (January) | He files patent applications for the generator of alternating currents, for the method and device of electric conversion, for an electric measuring device, for incandescent electric illumination, electrical condenser, electrical conductor and for the electric railway system. He gives lectures in London and Paris. During his lecture in Paris a telepathic voice told him his mother was ill and was dying. (Tesla trained the telepathic communication with his mother while he was still living in Smiljan). He goes to Smiljan and finds his mother on her death-bed. His mother died on his arms. On 24 May Tesla gave a lecture on alternating currents in Zagreb. |
| 1893. | Tesla's generator was demonstrated at an exhibition in Chicago. The Columbus Exhibition was conceived as a celebration of 400 years of the discovery of America, which craved for spectacle. So, on 1 May 1893 the first electro-technical fair in history was held. This opened the way for the building of a hydro power plant on the Niagara Falls, Tesla's long-standing dream. |
| 1894. | Tesla was awarded the honorary doctorate of the Yale and Columbia Universities and the Elliott Cresson medal of the Franklin Institute. These were the first of a total of 15 honorary doctorates. |
| 1895. | On 13 March Tesla's laboratory in New York was destroyed by fire. In July a new laboratory was built and began work. Tesla constructed the transmission and reception radio station. In September the first power-transmission line 35 km long for a nearby town of Buffalo went on-stream. Three days after the power plant on the Niagara Falls went into operation, the hydro power plant on the Krka Waterfalls near Šibenik in Croatia also went into operation. Six transformer stations were placed on a 16 km power-transmission line. In December 1985 Professor Roentgen unveiled his discovery of X rays, although Tesla discovered them first. Tesla immediately sent to the German his pictures and got the following response: "The pictures are very interesting. Would you be so kind as to tell me how did you obtain them?" Tesla discovered and experimented with X rays, calling them cosmic rays, before Roentgen. It is known that inventions of Nikola Tesla have been stolen and patented before Tesla found the time to apply for patents. So in his book Tesla wrote: "I do not regret that others stole my ideas, but I regret that they do not have any ideas of their own." |
| 1896. | In December 1896 in Zagreb he becomes a honorary member of the Yugoslav Academy of Arts and Sciences. Conducts experiments with X rays. |
| 1897. | Tesla's experiments of wireless transmission of electric energy. |
| 1898. | July - application for the patent of remote control of ships and vehicles; September - in New York he illustrated the idea of remote wireless control; presents the idea of robotics which could not have been understood and accepted at the time; in Buffalo lectures on electrotherapy. He tests a small (18 cm) electro-mechanical oscillator; without any intentions he fastened it on a supporting iron post that was part of a building in East Houston street. The device caused a tremor and the residents ran out of the building in search of safety. It was Tesla's new discovery, the Tesla oscillator. |
| 1899. | Experiments with a 200 kw radio station in Colorado; the signals reached New York. High frequency "Tesla transformer" in the laboratory threw sparks over 4 m, at 10 million volts. The discovery of "standing waves" on 4 July 1899 in Colorado Springs, which appear in the process of natural discharge. Tesla commented on these phenomena in his articles in 1900, entitled "The problem of increase of human energy", "The means of transmission through natural media" and in the article "Transmission of electric energy without wires" published in 1904. Tesla maintains that the approximate length of standing waves varies between 25 and 70 km and that the lowest resonance in which the effect of the standing wave appears is 6 Hz in an interval not lesser than 0.08484 seconds. By electromagnetic suppression of the device, the electric potential grew. The entire tower behaved as a low-frequency resonator, which was an oscillator and an antenna at the same time. |
| 1900. | Patent applications for means of insulating electrical conductors, for a method of signalling and the system of signalling. On 3 January in his snow-shackled laboratory, with sparks that appeared due to action of oscillators directed toward the floor, Tesla perceived the phenomena of "fiery balls" or ball-shaped lightning which moves slowly. Tesla begins the construction of a World Centre for Telegraphy on Long Island, 60 miles from New York. He receives no more financial support from George Westinghouse. Morgan refused him as well. |
| 1901. | Begins the construction of the Wardenclyffe Tower on Long Island, 56 m high. To this day no one knows with certainty what was its intended purpose. Works were halted in 1906 due to lack of funds. |
| 1902. | Tesla files a patent application for a device for the transmission of electric energy. |
| 1904. | Tesla declares his project "The World Wireless System". |
| 1906. | Due to lack of funds the work of the radio station on Long Island is halted. This was a blow to Tesla and it led to his financial ruin. He lives off the help of his friends. He isolates himself from people entirely, finding the best friends in pigeons which he feeds in the city parks. Thus, one day he got to know his she-pigeon; the relationship is described in many books and museums. It was an inspiration for artists in the creation of performances on the topic of "Tesla's she-pigeon". |
| 1908. | Tesla works on the improvement of turbines. |
| 1909. | Patent application for fluid propulsion, for turbine without blades, for speed-indicator, valvular conduit, lightning rod, flow-meter, ship's speed-indicator, frequency meter. |
| 1911. | Patent application for the turbine. Without paying for patent authorization on the year of his death in 1943, the biggest American oil companies began using this turbine as the best method of extracting oil. |
| 1912. | Tesla and T. A. Edison were proposed for the Nobel Prize. |
| 1913. | George Westinghouse, Tesla's investor, dies. |
| 1917. (May) | Gets the Edison medal, awarded in 1916. His tower on Long Island is demolished. The last 20 years of Tesla's life were a secret. |
| 1918. | Tesla patents the lighting rod. |
| 1921. | Publishes an article "International traffic" in which he expounds his idea about the possibility of links between planets by means of ultra-short waves. The idea was realized in 1946 when the first waves from the Earth went to the Sun and Moon and came back. |
| 1922. | After a lengthy period he filed applications for a series of patents in the field of fluid mechanics which were not fully elaborated, nor supplemented; so, they expired and became the property of the State. |
| 1926. | He receives an honorary doctorate in technical sciences from the Technical Faculty in Belgrade. On the same year he is awarded the honorary doctorate by the University of Zagreb. |
| 1931. | Tesla celebrates his 75th birthday. Receives congratulations from Lee de Forest and Albert Einstein. In the same year Thomas Alva Edison dies. This year Tesla appears on the front page of Time magazine. |
| 1934. | Tesla develops a plan of transmission of energy as a beam. He receives the John Scott medal in Philadelphia as a token of thanks for the multi-phase system of electric energy. |
| 1936. | In the seat of the Government in Zagreb the festivity was held on the occasion of Tesla's 80th birthday. |
| 1937. | Guglielmo Marconi, Tesla's friend, the supposed inventor of radio, who stole Tesla's idea about the radio, dies. After Tesla's death this patent went to Tesla by virtue of the right of precedence. |
| 1938. | In Hotel New Yorker Tesla spoke about the wireless transmission of electric energy and the death rays. |
| 1943. (7. January) | Tesla died in his hotel room in New York under strange circumstances. |
| 1949. | The Factory for telephone devices "Nikola Tesla" was founded in Zagreb. |
| 1956. | The urn of Nikola Tesla was transported into the Museum of Nikola Tesla in Belgrade. |
| 1960. | In Paris, the name "Tesla" was accepted for a unit of magnetic induction. |
| 1963. | The Technical Museum is opened in Zagreb with a department dedicated to Nikola Tesla. |
| 1969. | The image of Nikola Tesla on the rector's chain of the University of Zagreb. |
| 1970. | The monument to Nikola Tesla erected alongside the RIZ factory in Zagreb. |
| 1976. | Celebration of 120th anniversary of birth - scientific symposium in Zagreb, Gospić and Smiljan; the monument to Nikola Tesla erected on the Niagara Falls. American Institute of Electrical Engineers gives Tesla's name to its yearly award. |
| 1978. | Margaret Cheney published the best biography of Tesla written so far - "Man out of Time". |
| 1981. | The monument to Tesla erected in Gospić. The work of the great Croatian sculptor Frano Kršinić, it was demolished ten years later. |
| 1983. | American Post issues the stamp with Tesla's picture. |
| 1984. | In Sacramento a hard-rock band "Tesla" is formed. |
| 1986. | In Colorado Springs the "International Tesla Society, Inc." is founded. |
| 1997. | In a special edition of Life magazine, Tesla is included on the 57th place on the list of the most influential persons in the last 1000 years. |
| 2005. | Elected among 100 most deserving Americans by public voting in the organization of the American TV Channel "Discovery". |
| 2006. (9 July) | Statue of Nikola Tesla unveiled at the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls |