HOUDINI

 

Harry Houdini was born as Erik Weisz in Budapest, Hungary, on March 24, 1874. His parents were Rabbi Mayer Samuel Weisz and Cecelia. Houdini and was one of seven children.  The family emigrated to the United States and  arrived on July 3, 1878. They first lived in Appleton and became an American citizen. As a child, Ehrich AKA Harry Weiss took several jobs, making his public début as a 9-year-old trapeze artist, calling himself “Ehrich, the Prince of the Air”. Weiss became a professional magician and called himself “Harry Houdini” after the French magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin.

 

Houdini began his magic career in 1891.  At the outset Houdini focused on traditional card tricks and performed in dime museums, sideshows and even circuses, but had little success.

 

Houdini’s “big break” came in 1899 when he performed on the Orpheum vaudeville circuit. In 1900, Houdini toured Europe. He gave a demonstration of escapology at Scotland Yard, and succeeded in baffling the police so effectively that he was booked to perform at the Alhambra theatre for a fixed six months.

 

Houdini toured England, Scotland, the Netherlands, Germany, France, and Russia. In each city, he would challenge the police to restrain him with shackles and lock him in their jails. In many of these challenge escapes, Houdini would first be stripped nude and searched. In Moscow, Houdini escaped from a Siberian prison transport van. Houdini claimed that, had he been unable to free himself, he would have had to travel to Siberia, where the only key was kept. In Cologne, he sued a police officer, Werner Graff, who alleged that he made his escapes via bribery. Houdini won the case when he opened the judge’s safe. With his new-found wealth and success, Houdini purchased a dress said to have been made for Queen Victoria. He then arranged a grand reception where he presented his mother in the dress to all their relatives. Houdini said it was the happiest day of his life. In 1904, Houdini returned to the U.S. and purchased a house for $25,000, a brownstone at 278 W. 113th Street in Harlem, New York City.

 From 1907 and throughout the 1910s, Houdini performed with great success in the United States. He would free himself from jails, handcuffs, chains, ropes, and straitjackets, often while hanging from a rope in plain sight of street audiences. Because of imitators, on January 25, 1908, Houdini put his “handcuff act” behind him and began escaping from a locked, water-filled milk can. The possibility of failure and death thrilled his audiences. Houdini also expanded repertoire with his escape challenge act, in which he invited the public to devise contraptions to hold him. These included nailed packing crates (sometimes lowered into water), riveted boilers, wet-sheets, mailbags, and even the belly of a whale that had washed ashore in Boston. Brewers challenged Houdini to escape from a barrel after they filled it with beer in Scranton, PA and other cities.

 

Many of these challenges were pre-arranged with local merchants in what is certainly one of the first uses of mass tie-in marketing. Rather than promote the idea that he was assisted by spirits, as did the Davenport Brothers and others, Houdini’s advertisements showed him making his escapes via dematerializing although Houdini himself never claimed to have supernatural powers.

 

1912, Houdini introduced perhaps his most famous act, the Chinese Water Torture Cell, in which he was suspended upside-down in a locked glass-and-steel cabinet full to overflowing with water. The act required that Houdini hold his breath for more than three minutes. Houdini performed the escape for the rest of his career. Despite two Hollywood movies depicting Houdini dying in the Torture Cell, the act had nothing to do with his death. Throughout his career, Houdini explained some of his tricks in books written for the magic brotherhood. In Handcuff Secrets (1909), he revealed how many locks and handcuffs could be opened with properly applied force, others with shoestring. Other times, he carried concealed lock picks or keys, being able to regurgitate small keys at will. When tied down in ropes or straitjackets, he gained wiggle room by enlarging his shoulders and chest, moving his arms slightly away from his body, and then dislocating his shoulders.[citation needed]

 

His straitjacket escape was originally performed behind curtains, with him popping out free at the end. However, Houdini’s brother, (who was also an escape artist, billing himself as Theodore Hardeen), discovered that audiences were more impressed when the curtains were eliminated so they could watch him struggle to get out. On more than one occasion, they both performed straitjacket escapes whilst dangling upside-down from the roof of a building for publicity.[citation needed]

 For most of his career, Houdini was a headline act in vaudeville. For many years, he was the highest-paid performer in American vaudeville. One of Houdini’s most notable non-escape stage illusions was performed at New York’s Hippodrome Theatre, when he vanished a full-grown elephant (with its trainer) from the stage, beneath which was a swimming pool. In 1923, Houdini became president of Martinka & Co., America’s oldest magic company. The business is still in operation today. He also served as President of the Society of American Magicians (aka S.A.M.) from 1917 until his death in 1926. In the final years of his life (1925/26), Houdini launched his own full-evening show, which he billed as “3 Shows in One: Magic, Escapes, and Fraud Mediums Exposed

 

In 1901, Houdini introduced his own original act, the Milk Can Escape. In this act, Houdini would be handcuffed and sealed inside an over-sized milk can filled with water and make his escape behind a curtain. As part of the effect, Houdini would invite members of the audience to hold their breath along with him while he was inside the can. Advertised with dramatic posters that proclaimed “Failure Means A Drowning Death”, the escape proved to be a sensation. Houdini soon modified the escape to include the milk can being locked inside a wooden chest, being chained or padlocked, and even inside another milk can. Houdini only performed the milk can escape as a regular part of his act for four years, but it remains one of the acts most associated with the escape artist. Houdini’s brother, Theodore Hardeen, continued to perform the milk can (and the wooden chest variation) into the 1940s.

 

In 1912, the vast number of imitators prompted Houdini to replace his Milk Can act with the Chinese Water Torture Cell. In this escape, Houdini’s feet would be locked in stocks, and he would be lowered upside down into a tank filled with water. The mahogany and metal cell featured a glass front, through which audiences could clearly see Houdini. The stocks would be locked to the top of the cell, and a curtain would conceal his escape. In the earliest version of the Torture Cell, a metal cage was lowered into the cell, and Houdini was enclosed inside that. While making the escape more difficult (the cage prevented Houdini from turning), the cage bars also offered protection should the front glass break. The original cell was built in England, where Houdini first performed the escape for an audience of one person as part of a one-act play he called “Houdini Upside Down”. This was so he could copyright the effect and have grounds to sue imitators (which he did). While the escape was advertised as “The Chinese Water Torture Cell” or “The Water Torture Cell”, Houdini always referred to it as “the Upside Down” or “USD”. The first public performance of the USD was at the Circus Busch in Berlin, on September 21, 1912. Houdini continued to perform the escape until his death in 1926. One of Houdini’s most popular publicity stunts was to have himself strapped into a regulation straitjacket and suspended by his ankles from a tall building or crane. Houdini would then make his escape in full view of the assembled crowd. In many cases, Houdini would draw thousands of onlookers who would choke the street and bring city traffic to a halt. Houdini would sometimes ensure press coverage by performing the escape from the office building of a local newspaper. In New York City, Houdini performed the suspended straitjacket escape from a crane being used to build the New York subway. After flinging his body in the air, he escaped from the straitjacket. Starting from when he was hoisted up in the air by the crane, to when the straitjacket was completely off, it took him two minutes and thirty-seven seconds. After being battered against a building in high winds during one escape, Houdini performed the escape with a visible safety wire on his ankle so that he could be pulled away from the building if necessary.

 

Another one of Houdini’s most famous publicity stunts was to escape from a nailed and roped packing crate after it had been lowered into water. Houdini first performed the escape in New York’s East River on July 7, 1912. Police forbade him from using one of the piers, so Houdini hired a tugboat and invited press on board. Houdini was locked in handcuffs and leg-irons, then nailed into the crate which was roped and weighed down with two hundred pounds of lead. The crate was then lowered into the water. Houdini escaped in fifty-seven seconds. The crate was pulled to the surface and found to still be intact with the manacles inside. Houdini would perform this escape many times, and even performed a version on stage, first at Hamerstein’s Roof Garden (where a 5,500-gallon tank was specially built), and later at the New York Hippodrome.

 

Houdini performed at least three variations on a “Buried Alive” stunt/escape during his career. The first was near Santa Ana, California in 1915, and it almost cost Houdini his life. Houdini was buried, without a casket, in a pit of earth six feet deep. He became exhausted and panicky trying to dig his way to the surface and called for help. When his hand finally broke the surface, he fell unconscious and had to be pulled from the grave by his assistants. Houdini wrote in his diary that the escape was “very dangerous” and that “the weight of the earth is killing.”

 

Houdini’s second variation on Buried Alive was an endurance test designed to expose mystical Egyptian performer Rahman Bey, who claimed to use supernatural powers to remain in a sealed casket for an hour. Houdini bettered Bey on August 5, 1926, by remaining in a sealed casket submerged in the swimming pool of New York’s Hotel Shelton for one hour and a half. Houdini claimed he did not use any trickery or supernatural powers to accomplish this feat, just controlled breathing. He repeated the feat at the YMCA in Worcester Massachusetts on September 28, 1926, this time remaining sealed for one hour and eleven minutes.

 

Houdini’s final Buried Alive was an elaborate stage escape that was to feature in his full evening show. The stunt would see Houdini escape after being strapped in a strait-jacket, sealed in a casket, and then buried in a large tank filled with sand. While there are posters advertising the escape (playing off the Bey challenge they boasted “Egyptian Fakirs Outdone!”), it is unclear whether Houdini ever performed Buried Alive on stage. The stunt was to be the feature escape of his 1927 season, but Houdini died on October 31, 1926. The bronze casket Houdini created for Buried Alive was used to transport Houdini’s body from Detroit back to New York following his death on Halloween.

 

In 1906 Houdini started showing films of his outside escapes as part of his vaudeville act. In Boston he presented a short film called Houdini Defeats Hackenschmidt, a famous wrestler of the day. In 1909 Houdini made a film in Paris for Cinema Lux titled Marvelous Exploits of the Famous Houdini in Paris. It featured a loose narrative designed to showcase several of Houdini’s famous escapes, including his straitjacket and underwater handcuff escapes. That same year Houdini got an offer to star as Captain Nemo in a silent version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but the project never made it into production.

 

Neither Houdini’s acting career nor his own film production company FDC found success, and he gave up on the movie business in 1923, complaining that “the profits are too meager”. But his celebrity was such that, years later, he would be given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

 

In 1909, Houdini became fascinated with aviation. He purchased a French Voisin biplane for $5000 and painted his name in bold block letters on the  side panels and tail. After crashing once, he made his first successful flight on November 26, 1909 in Hamburg, Germany. The following year Houdini toured Australia. He brought along his Voisin biplane and made the first powered flight over Australia on March 18 at Diggers Rest, north of Melbourne. Following his Australia tour, Houdini put the Voisin into storage in England. He announced he would use it to fly from city to city during his next Music Hall tour, although Houdini never in fact flew again.

 

Houdini made the only known recordings of his voice on Edison wax cylinders on October 29, 1914, in Flatbush, New York. On them, Houdini practices several different introductory speeches for his famous Chinese Water Torture Cell. He also invites his sister, Gladys, to recite a poem. Houdini then recites the same poem in German. The six wax cylinders were discovered in the collection of magician John Mulholland after his death in 1970. They are part of the David Copperfield collection.

 In the 1920s Houdini turned his energies toward debunking self-proclaimed psychics and mediums, a pursuit that would inspire and be followed by later-day conjurers. Houdini’s training in magic allowed him to expose frauds who had successfully fooled many scientists and academics. He was a member of a Scientific American committee that offered a cash prize to any medium who could successfully demonstrate supernatural abilities. None were able to do so, and the prize was never collected. The first to be tested was medium George Valentine of Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. As his fame as a “ghostbuster” grew, Houdini took to attending séances in disguise, accompanied by a reporter and police officer. Possibly the most famous medium whom he debunked was Mina Crandon, also known as “Margery”. Houdini chronicled his debunking exploits in his book, A Magician Among the Spirits. These activities cost Houdini the friendship of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle, a firm believer in Spiritualism during his later years, refused to believe any of Houdini’s exposés. Doyle came to believe that Houdini was a powerful spiritualist medium, and had performed many of his stunts by means of paranormal abilities and was using these abilities to block those of other mediums that he was ‘debunking’. This disagreement led to the two men becoming public antagonists.

 

Before Houdini died, he and his wife, Bess, agreed that if Houdini’s spirit came back to earth, he would utter “Rosabelle believe” as a secret codeword to prove that it was actually him. This was a phrase from a play that Bess performed in when the couple first met. Bess held yearly séances on Halloween for ten years after Houdini’s death, but Houdini’s spirit never appeared. In 1936, after a last unsuccessful séance on the roof of the Knickerbocker Hotel, she put out the candle that she had kept burning beside a photograph of Houdini since his death, later saying in 1943 that “ten years is long enough to wait for any man.” The tradition of holding a séance for Houdini continues by magicians throughout the world to this day; the Official Houdini Séance is currently organized by Sidney Hollis Radner, a Houdini aficionado from upstate New York. Yearly Houdini Séances are also conducted in Chicago at the Excaliber nightclub by “necromancer” Neil Tobin on behalf of the Chicago Assembly of the Society of American Magicians; and at the Houdini Museum in Scranton by magician Dorothy Dietrich who previously held them at New York’s famous Magic Towne House with such magical notables as Houdini biographers Walter B. Gibson and Milbourne Christopher. Gibson was asked by Bess Houdini to carry on the tradition. Before he died, Walter passed on the tradition to Dorothy Dietrich.

 

Harry Houdini died of peritonitis, secondary to a ruptured appendix on October 31, aged 52. Eyewitnesses to an incident at the Princess Theater in Montreal gave rise to speculation that Houdini’s death was caused by a McGill University student, J. Gordon Whitehead, who delivered multiple blows to Houdini’s abdomen to test Houdini’s claim that he was able to take any blow to the body above the waist without injury. Houdini’s funeral was held on November 4, 1926 in the Machpelah Cemetery, New York with more than 2,000 mourners in attendance.

 

 source        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Houdini

 

Elton John Benefit for Ryan White

Sacajawea

Sacajawea was born on the banks of the River Lemhi,  in the northern reaches of the Rocky Mountains, in an area now called Idaho in 1788.  Her Shoshone name was Bo-I-Naiv meaning Grass Woman. As a member of the Lemhi tribe of the Northern Shoshone Nation her life as a female was hard.  Women had little respect and were expected to do all the physical work, while the men of the tribe would hunt and pursue leisurely activities.  The philosophy of the tribe allowed women to be beaten and physically abused, but would not behave this way to the males, since they believed it would undermine the spirit of the young braves.  

 

Having experienced a long period of frequent raids by other native Indians her tribe had become decimated and very poor.  One winter, during the fall of 1800, while wintering near the three forks of the Missouri River, in what is now Montana, Sacajawea was captured by a band of Minnetaree Indians from the Hidatsa village. While most of her tribe were killed, she and other women were captured and sold as slaves to the Mandan Indians.  The girls’ new master, Red Arrow treated them kindly, like his own daughters. However, one day, Red Arrow lost the girls in a game of chance to a French-Canadian fur trader named Troussaint Charbonneau. Bo-I Naiv and another native woman of her tribe called Otter Woman were taken to live amongst the Mandan Indians with Charbonneau and his wife.  Charbonneau’s wife had been ill for some time and on her death, Bo-I Naiv and Otter Woman became his  wife’s.  From that time on Bo-I Naiv was called Tsakakawea, which means Bird Woman.  

 

In 1803 America purchased the unexplored state of Louisiana from the French.  The then President Thomas Jefferson argued with congress for funding for an exploration of the North West Pacific, hoping to find a passable water route across the continent to the Pacific Ocean.  Once the funding was granted he appointed Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to head the expedition.  In May of 1804 they started out from Fort Dubois, Illinois. As well as Lewis and Clark, The Corps of Discovery  were accompanied by a troop of fourteen soldiers, nine frontiersmen, Clark’s servant, York, a couple of boatmen and a Newfoundland dog called Seaman.  In the winter of 1804–05, the party built Fort Mandan, near present-day Washburn, North Dakota. It was here that they first met Sacajawea. Toussaint Charbonneau offered the services of himself and his wife as a translator and guide to the expedition. Although six months pregnant and only fifteen years old, they welcomed the young woman as a valuable asset, since they would be exploring the region from which she had originally come.  Before continuing, Captain Lewis, who acted as the Doctor for the expedition, assisted Sacajawea in the birth of her first child, administering rattlesnake venom to ease her labour. The baby, named Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, called Pomp or Pompy by Sacajawea, was born healthy and active.

 

Together with Lewis and Clark and a party of thirty or so soldiers, Sacajawea, with her husband and baby, set out on the expedition that would take them 8000 miles over a period of 2 years, 4 months and 10 days, by foot, canoe and horse, through unknown lands with hostile natives to search out a route to the Pacific and so strengthen the American claim to the Oregon territory; and to explore the country of the Far West and gather information about the indigenous tribes of that region.  During the expedition many of the its members kept diaries of their adventure and often referred to Tsakakawea and how beneficial her presence was to the survival and success of their expedition, actively helping them find edible plants and roots; track and hunt game; and trade and negotiate with the Shoshone and Nez Perce for information, food, horses, various  needed supplies and safe passage.   An extract from one of the journals gives an account of an incident that occurred on May 14, 1805  which was typical of the calmness and self-possession Sacajawea was to display throughout the journey. It was recorded that the boat Sacajawea was in was hit by a sudden storm. In danger of capsizing, the other members of the crew worked desperately to right the boat, while Sacajawea, with her baby strapped to her back, busied herself with retrieving the valuable books whose loss would have brought their mission to an end.   It is also recorded how they met Chief Cameahwait or Black Bow.  The Shoshone chief, and long lost brother of Sacajawea, agreed to sell the party the horses they needed for the trek through the mountains. He also sketched a map of the country to the west and provided a guide, Old Toby, who took them through the mountains and safely to the Nez Perce country where they resumed their journey by river.  Sacagawea maintained a “helpful, uncomplaining attitude of cheerfulness in the face of hardship.” This was commented on in all the men’s diaries. The only record of her complaining is when she was denied the opportunity to see a beached whale 35 miles from the fort where they had their winter camp on the Columbia River. Nearby Indians reported that the whale had washed up on the beach. about.  Sacajawea said that she had “travelled a long way to see the great waters and, now that a monstrous fish was also to be seen, she thought it “very hard” that she could not be permitted to see it, and the ocean too.”  However, she got her wish and Captain Clark took a party of two canoes, including Sacajawea and her husband, to find the whale and possibly obtain some blubber. By the time they arrived there was nothing left but the skeleton, but they were able to buy about 35 pounds of blubber.

 

In the summer of 1806, the expedition was over,  Sacajawea, her husband and son remained at Fort Mandan where Lewis and Clark had found them. In August 1806, Captain Clark wrote to Charbonneau and invited him to come to St. Louis, they accepted the offer and lived near St. Louis for a time. In March 1811, however, Charbonneau sold his land back to Clark and returned to the Dakotas with Sacajawea. Their son  remained in St. Louis in the care of Cpt. Clark, who was the Indian Agent of the Louisiana Purchase at that time.   The exact date and place of Sacajawea’s death is uncertain.  One rumour claims she died young in the  near by  Ft. Manuel.  The local clerk recorded the death of a young Shoshone squaw, wife to Charbonneau, who left a baby girl to the care of Cpt. Clark. However, the  Shoshones say that Sacajawea stayed with her husband among the Mandan Indians for many years, while others say she left him soon after the expedition, because he took another wife.   It is believed that afterwards she married a Comanche man named Jerk Meat.  After his death she returned to her own people at the Wind River reservation, where her son Jean Baptiste and adopted son Bazil were living.   Interestingly enough, the claims that she returned to her native tribe and died a venerable and honoured member are supported by the historical fact of a woman named Porivo, who was known to have lived amongst the tribe at that time.  Porivo, which means “chief”,  is reported to have worn a Jefferson medal, knew French, and knew details of the expedition. Those around her believed her to be Sacajawea, who was know to be the sister of the Shoshone chief Black Bow. When she died in 1884 at the age of nearly 100, she was the last survivor of the expedition. The Grave of Sacajawea is located in the Shoshone Cemetery at Fort Washakie, Wyoming, and next to it is a monument to her first son Jean Baptiste. During editing of the expedition journals her name was changed to Sacajawea, and this was the spelling etched on monuments dedicated to her.

The Man who Invented the Twentieth Centuary

Tesla contributed in varying degrees to the establishment of robotics, remote control, radar and computer science, and to the expansion of ballistics, nuclear physics, and theoretical physics. In 1943, the Supreme Court of the United States credited him as being the inventor of the radio. Unlike Direct current his invention of Alternate Current electrical distribution allowed electricity to be transmitted over long distances so that cities and suburbs, towns, villages and remote areas could have an electrical supply. Yet, if I ask my father who Tesla is he doesn’t know. Rather sad considering my father is a retired professional electrical engineer and member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers (IEE).

Born on July 10, 1856 in Croatia, Nikola Tesla is best known for his inventions which had a profound effect on the 20th and 21st centuries. The son of an Orthodox priest, Tesla’s chose a career in mechanical engineering to which aim he attended the Austrian Polytechnic School in Graz and the University of Prague. Unfortunately he was forced to withdraw before graduating due to financial problems when his father died. He then worked with the American Telephone Company in Budapest, and Continental Edison in France.
In 1884, at the age of 28, he emigrated to America with only 4 cents in his pocket. With a recommendation by the Manager of Continental Edison, Charles Batchelor, he began working for Thomas Edison. Edison promised Tesla $50,000 if he could make Edison’s DC generators more efficient but when Edison reneged on a promise to pay him he quit in disgust. Tesla constructed the very first brushless AC induction motor in 1887, based on a design he envisioned years ago and demonstrated a working model before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) in 1888. After this success Tesla teamed with George Westinghouse. Westinghouse, owned the patents on AC transformers, and competed with Edison as to what type of current, Direct Current (DC) or Alternation Current(AC), would distribute power to the American nation. Edison supported the development of DC distribution while Westinghouse supported AC.
During the period from 1887 through 1890, Tesla created and patented the idea of using alternating currents, generated in multiple phases (called a “poly-phase system”), to produce rotating magnetic fields. Tesla and Westinghouse demonstrated the practicality of AC power by providing all the lighting for the 1893 Colombian Exposition at the World’s Fair and then went on to provide polyphase power to Buffalo, NY, by using hydroelectric energy from Niagara Falls. These demonstrations showed the superiority of AC over DC for practical long distance electrical power distribution.
Tesla’s research into higher frequency AC led him to the invention of radio communication in 1893. Tesla filed his basic Radio patents in 1897, and demonstrated a radio remote controlled electric boat in 1898. However, in 1904, the US Patent office reversed Tesla’s basic radio patent, and instead awarded the patent for radio to Guglielmo Marcon. He filed suit against Marconi for radio patents in 1915. The long drawn out court case left him bankrupt but was finally decided in Tesla’s favour by the US Supreme Court in1944, months after he died.
During his life Tesla became convinced that wireless transmission of electric power was possible and in 1900 Tesla gained funding and constructed of a giant 200 kW wireless power transmitter at Wardenclyffe, Long Island, NY in with this in mind. Unfortunately the project was discontinued when J. P. Morgan, , his main financial backer, stopped funding.
Tesla continued experimenting and inventing and In 1917 was awarded the Edison Medal by the AIEE. During the presentation, his impressive inventions were recognized:

“Were we to seize and eliminate from our industrial world the results of Mr. Tesla’s work, the wheels of industry would cease to turn, our electric cars and trains would stop, our towns would be dark, our mills would be dead and idle” – B. A. Behrend
“His work…. antedated that of Marconi and formed the basis of wireless telegraphy… throughout all branches of science and engineering we find important evidence of what Tesla has contributed.” – W. W. Rice, president of AIEE
Tesla was awarded 221 worldwide patents, and 113 US patents. The inventions covered AC power alternators, transformers, and motors; radio communication, fluorescent lighting, automotive ignition systems, VTOL aircraft, efficient bladeless turbines, remote control, neon lighting, x ray tubes and the Tesla coil. etc. Amongst the more legendary inventions were radar, an anti-gravity machine and a death ray that could stall the engines of airborne planes and distant cars.
Tesla, unconcerned about getting rich, died penniless in 1943. Upon his death his personal belongings, research papers and equipment were seized by the American Government. Tesla’s papers involving remote detection and advanced weapons development were quickly inspected for national defence and then Microfilmed. FBI documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show that these United States Government microfilms were made available for use by the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force during and after the war.
The famous physicist and inventor of the model of the atom Niels Bohr summed it up nicely:
“Tesla’s ingenious invention of the polyphase system as well as his explorations of the amazing phenomenon of high frequency oscillations were the basis for developing completely new conditions for industry and radio communications, and had a profound influence upon the whole civilization.”

Thank you to the Nikola Tesla Information centre http://teslamania.delete.org/frames/Tesla0.html