Nikola Tesla was born at the stroke of night on July 10, 1856, during a lightning storm, in the small vill of Smiljan, part of the Austrian Empire( ultramodern- day Croatia). His mama , Georgina Đuka Tesla, reportedly declared that her son would be “ a child of light, ” a vaticination befitting the man who would latterly illuminate the world. Tesla’s father, Milutin Tesla, was a Serbian Orthodox clerk and pen. Though Milutin envisaged his son joining the church, Tesla was irresistibly drawn to the world of wisdom and invention from a youthful age.