Tesla's nationality was...

This is the last known photo of Nicola Tesla. By the end of his life, he was penniless and he died alone.

Despite being a brilliant inventor and visionary, Nikola Tesla was not widely celebrated during his lifetime. Throughout most of his life, he was overshadowed by rivals like Thomas Edison. He died alone and broke in a New York hotel, largely forgotten by the public and mainstream scientific community.

The irony is that in death, Tesla became everything he wasn’t in his life. He is universally admired, commercialized, and claimed by various countries and companies that want a link to Tesla’s legacy.

Wait, do you know what his nationality was? It’s not that easy to give it a quick answer though.

His ethnic background was Serbian. The Serbian people see him as a national hero, and his face is featured on Serbian currency.

However, he was born in Smiljan, which is now part of Croatia. Croatian people consider Tesla as their historical heritage. The Croatian weekly magazine Hrvatski Obzor, in 1999, organized a poll to select the Croatian person of the century and Nikola Tesla won by a large margin.

Wait, there are still more candidates in the line. In his time, Croatia was under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Technically, he was raised and studied engineering in the Austrian Empire. In most sources, Tesla’s nationality is given as “Austrian".

Then he earned American citizenship and spent most of his career in the US. I am certain that most Americans, especially those who drive Tesla automobiles, would consider Tesla a symbol of American innovation.

When he was alive, he was underfunded, ridiculed at times, and largely forgotten. Now? Everybody wants a piece of him. History is full of twists.