Nikola Tesla paid his hotel debts with a "Death-Beam," or so they thought

Nikola Tesla was known for his inventions.  He constructed devices like Tesla coils and electric oscillators, as well as pioneered the way for the X-Ray, radio and remote controls.

He was known for sending electricity and magnetic wavelength over distances to power and control object wirelessly.

Unfortunately, by later life, he was saddled in debt.  His patents had been bought and he did not receive the credit and payment for his inventions due to copyright laws.  One such debt was a $20,000 bill at the Waldorf Astoria hotel that he sold his wireless energy power plant, the Wardenclyffe tower, to pay for.

Another sizeable debt was racked up at the Governor Clinton Hotel in Manhattan.  At this point in his life, he was poor; he did not have the cash to pay the debt and, so, he sold them a box with, what he called, a death-beam inside of it.  He told them not to open it, as it was extremely dangerous and could be set off, but, because of who he was, the hotel believed him and made the purchase anyway.

When Tesla died, in 1943, an MIT scientist working for the National Defense Research Committee was sent to Tesla’s hotel room/lab to retrieve the potentially deadly weapon.  Also accompanied by John O. Trump from the office of Naval Intelligence, the box was securely opened.  They were dumbstruck.

According to them, the only think in the box was a “multidecade resistance box of the type used for a Wheatstone bridge resistance measurements—a common standard item found in every electric laboratory before the turn of the century."

Basically, Tesla threw some common electronic parts into the box and sold it for $10,000.  At least, on some level, he got the last laugh.