The Serbian-born Nikola Tesla was one of the rare geniuses born into the world one or two to a generation. Before he moved to the U.S. and became a naturalized citizen at the age of 35, he’d already learned to speak five different languages, invented alternating-current (AC) electricity (though financing was hard to come by), worked briefly for Continental Edison in Paris in refining DC motors, and then built his own AC mechanism. In the U.S. he would invent or contribute to the fundamentals of many common household items today — like remote controls, FM radio, fluorescent lights — and even more remarkably, create some that are hard to replicate even with today’s technology.

On this day, October 22, on 1927, at the age of 71,  Nicola Tesla revealed in paper six new inventions, the most notable of which being a single-phase electric motor that could be used where the more efficient three-phase electricity was not an option.

Where Thomas Edison’s direct current was weak and inefficient, Tesla demonstrated his alternating current to be relatively much more powerful. For one thing, it could be stepped up to high voltage levels, and could therefore be transmitted over a much longer distance, without the need for stations every two miles, as would be the case with DC.