Nikola Tesla:

There is no wire lighting the bulb in Tesla's hand.

Nikola Tesla was the god of electricity! For what do we owe this man? Imagine a world without: fluorescent lights, radio or TV, electric motors, hydro power generation, the generators to convert the hydro power (or any power really), or even the electricity that powers our everyday lives. Just to name a few. And some they aren't telling you about. Tesla's story is the 20th centuries equivalent of Galileo's battle with the Catholic church. He was ready to provide cheap wireless energy at Wardenclyffe, Long Island, when his funding was cut by J.P. Morgan.

JP Morgan

Wardenclyffe

Tesla's battle with the well known inventor Thomas Edison, was legendary, and has come to be known as the "War of Currents". Edison had created a way to supply direct current, which was costly and inefficient. In order to send power over long distance power lines, generation plants had to be built every few kilometers along the way. Tesla had invented alternating current, in which the polarity of the electricity is reversed 50 or 60 (or what ever) times per second. With this the voltage of the lines can be stepped up dramatically, and efficiently sent long distances over power lines with little loss. A vastly superior method. (Thus we have "alternating Current or AC current today coming from our wall sockets today). As Edison (and others) had invested heavily in Edison's 'direct current' technology, they often resorted to drastic measures to smear Tesla and AC as their ship was sinking. In one smear campaign, they publicly electrocuted an elephant with Tesla's alternating current in order to 'prove' it 'unsafe'.

Electrocuting an Elephant - by Thomas Edison.

This is a good article on Tesla, including a list of his patents (which you can check out here, at the US patent office.)
A list of Tesla's patents that you can check out on the page with Acrobat.
Here is what Wikipedia has to say about Tesla.