Hey night owls, quick question. Are you reading this on a phone? Watching it on a screen? Is there a

light on somewhere in your room right now? Cool. You can thank tonight's guy for basically all of that.

His name was Nikola Tesla, and he didn't just change the world. He built the one we're living in,

then died broke and alone in a hotel room while the rest of the world caught up to his

ideas about a century later.

No big deal.

Tonight we're cracking open one of history's greatest wait-watt stories,

a Serbian kid born during a literal lightning storm who grew up to harness electricity itself.

And yes, before you ask, the lightning thing is real.

We couldn't make that up if we tried.

Drop a comment right now and tell me where in the world you're watching from and what time it is.

I genuinely want to know who's up at this hour ready to have their mind rearranged.

So kill the overhead light, grab whatever you drink at midnight and get comfortable.

Because by the time we're done tonight, you're going to look

at every single wall outlet in your home and think, huh, there's a whole war behind that thing.

Let's go. Picture a small village tucked somewhere in the middle of nowhere, sandwiched between

rolling hills and dense forest in what is today Croatia, back when it was still a quiet corner

of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The village is called Smiljan, population, not many. Notable features, a church, some farmland,

a lot of mud, and on the night of July 10, 1856, an absolutely ferocious thunderstorm that

seemed determined to announce itself to the entire region.

The locals, understandably, were doing what sensible people do during violent storms in the

...