When the time came for the hotel to collect from their guest, he had little to offer, being, yknow, a famously deadbeat inventor. So he made them a deal. If they let him live there a little longer, hed give them an amazing piece of collateral a never before seen invention worth 1. The only stipulation was that they never open it, it being incredibly dangerous. The device was so dangerous, in fact, that it could zap entire armies to death with a press of the button. It wasnt a death ray that would be silly. According to Tesla, it was more of a death beam, if anything. Sure, Tesla, its the ray part of the name that gives that weapon a bad rap. The hotel immediately jumped on the offer, because what establishment hosting dozens of sleeping guests wouldnt want a deadly superweapon in their break room When the deal had been struck, Tesla hightailed it out of the hotel, never to return. The invention was tucked away inside the Governor Clinton and all but forgotten. Then, when Tesla died in 1. They also remembered his dire warning and, realizing that the only man able to disarm it was dead, went into a bit of a panic. The hotel called MIT and the NDRC, who sent over their best man, John The One Who Got All The Brains Trump, to look it over. The brave Trump first and last time youll ever read that opened Teslas box, but instead of being blown away by an experimental death beam, all he found were some useless electrical components Tesla had left in there. It was a ruse, the equivalent of sticking a banana in your pocket and holding up a bank. And it worked. Its one those the hidden benefits of being a crazy genius, we suppose. Say you have a death ray in your pocket, and people tend to believe you. Sorry, sorry, death beam. Adam Wears is on Twitter and Facebook. He also has a newsletter about depressing history, if youre into that sort of thing. Also check out 8 Famous People That History Got Almost Exactly Wrong and 6 Famous People With Shocking Criminal Backgrounds. Subscribe to our You. Tube channel, and check out 5 Famous Historical Figures Who Were Total Perverts, and other videos you wont see on the siteFollow us on Facebook, and well follow you everywhere.