It is a scientifically known fact that not all people on this earth are born with the same intelligence and potential. Some people are just born smarter than the rest. Most of these blessed people make use of their special gift and go on to make incredible discoveries.

One such person was Nikola Tesla.

The Serbian President, Tomislav Nikolic described Tesla as “A man whose ideas were larger than his time”. Tesla was born to Serbian parents and emigrated to the U.S. as a young man, where he eventually became a citizen.

A laboratory named Wardenclyffe was set up by Tesla in the small community of Shoreham, Long Island. It was here that he conducted most of his ambitious experiments. The building was financed by J. P. Morgan and designed by acclaimed architect Stanford White.

Tesla was a brilliant scientist and engineer and had more than 700 patents to his credit. As homage to this great visionary, a statue of Nikola Tesla graces New York’s Long Island.

Here are 10 lesser known facts about this brilliant man.

1. Tesla’s brilliance was noticed at a very young age.

Tesla attended school at Higher Real Gymnasium; Karlovac, Croatia in 1870.His brilliance came to light when Tesla was found performing integral calculus in his head. His greatest influence was his Math teacher Martin Sekulic. He graduated in 1873 finishing his four year term in just three years.

2. Tesla and Edison were on “current wars”.

Tesla initially worked for Edison, in the design of direct current generators. He subsequently quit and worked on his brain child: the alternating current induction motor. With Edison working on direct current and Tesla on alternating current, they were on different sides lightly termed as being on “current wars”. Though they had different scientific interests, they were known to have mutual respect for each other.

3. He developed the idea of smart phone technology in 1901.

To quote W. Bernard Carlson, “He was the first to be thinking about the information revolution in the sense of delivering information for each individual user”.

4. Important inventions of Tesla.

His inventions include, Alternating current, Tesla coil, Use of x-rays in medical diagnostics, Identifying radio signals, remote control, electric Motor, Robotics, Laser and Wireless Communications and Limitless Free Energy.

5. He had famous personalities as friends.

His friends list includes Author Mark Twain, conservationist John Muir, financiers Henry Clay Frick and Thomas Fortune Ryan and French actress Sarah Bernhardt.

6.He had a photographic memory.

He was known to memorize books, images and visions for inventions in his head. He also had a powerful imagination and the ability to visualize in three dimensions.

7. Tesla was believed to have had OCD.

Due to his near- fatal encounter with cholera as teenager, he was known for his excessive hygiene habits. He hated jewelry and round objects and wouldn’t touch hair. His hatred for pearls was a universal secret.

8. Tesla was an environmentalist.

Tesla researched ways to harvest the natural energy in the ground and sky. He created artificial lightning in his lab, and probed electrical potential differences in the Earth and across tall objects.

9. Tesla was a humanitarian.

Tesla was not interested in monetary gain and the downside of that was he never had enough money.

10.Tesla’s inventions were classified.

After Tesla death in 1943, the Office of Alien Property had taken his belongings. Most of his things were later released to his family, and many ended up in the Tesla Museum in Belgrade, which opened in 1950. Some of Tesla’s papers are still classified by the U.S. government