File:Nikola Tesla illuminated by high voltage.png

English: A drawing of Serbian-American electrical engineer Nikola Tesla illuminated by electrical discharges created by touching the high voltage terminal of his Tesla coil oscillator, from an illustration accompanying an 1894 interview with him in the New York World newspaper. A charismatic showman, during the period 1891-1894 Tesla gave a series of dramatic public demonstrations of the new technology of high frequency, high voltage electricity that made him internationally famous. He had discovered that the high frequency current produced by his Tesla coil did not cause the sensation of electric shock which lower frequencies or direct current produced, and in fact that currents that would be lethal at lower frequencies could be passed through his body without apparent harm. During demonstrations he would charge his body with hundreds of thousands of volts from his coils, causing a glowing corona discharge aura to surround his body as shown here, and brush discharges to spark from his fingers.