Nikola Tesla: A Legacy Unacknowledged

Amnah Dhailia

Individual Website

I chose this topic because I accidentally came across a web comic about Nikola Tesla three years ago and was absolutely fascinated by him. Since then I have read and learned a lot about his life and all of his accomplishments. Since then I took it upon myself to educate everyone around me about the man who invented so much of what makes our society modern but is only mentioned as a footnote in our history textbooks.

After reading the web comic I researched about Nikola Tesla and found many helpful resources such as teslasociety.com and Smithsonian.com which provided much of the information and pictures I included in the building of my website. After gaining a deeper understanding of his contributions to our society I downloaded the pdf file of Nikola Tesla’s autobiography “My Inventions” which was a great primary source and contained most of the quotations that I used. It also lead to an almost personal relationship between Mr. Tesla and me and provide a deeper understanding of who he was and what his life was like. My final step was watching many documentaries and videos on YouTube and Netflix, this provide a great source on the way people looked at Tesla; a genius, an unfortunate or just insane

I chose website because I wanted to challenge myself and experience a new frontier. This is my fourth year doing National History Day and this is the third category in which I have competed in. I had already experienced documentary and exhibit in each of these years and had different success levels in them. I structured the website with two points in mind, 1) to contain all my information and 2) to remain aesthetically appealing and easy to navigate to the laymen viewer.

My topic relates to the theme because Nikola Tesla was a man with an immense legacy who embodied leadership but was never fully appreciated. Nikola Tesla has contributed to nearly all fields of scientific research such as physics, astronomy, geology, and biology. Without him our society would not exist as it is. He has shown that perseverance and determination are the keys to life and with them the accomplishment of any task is feasible. Though his legacy is still unacknowledged by many, it lives on through the flipping on of an electric light, the push of a button on our cellphones, the computers on our laps, and the wireless communications that connect us all.

(414 words).