Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) was a Croatian-born physicist and prolific inventor whose many amazing contributions to science and technology have never been fully acknowledged. After he arrived in the United States at the age of 28, he began working for the famous electrical pioneer Thomas Edison. But the two men fell out disastrously and soon became bitter rivals. Tesla firmly believed that alternating current (AC) was far superior to direct current (DC), while Edison thought the opposite. With his partner George Westinghouse, Tesla championed AC, while Edison was determined to run the world on DC and dreamed up all kinds of publicity stunts to prove that AC was too dangerous for widespread use (inventing an electric chair, to prove that AC could be lethal, and even electrocuting Topsy the elephant with AC to show how deadly and cruel it was). The battle between these two very different visions of electric power is sometimes known as the War of the Currents.