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Lapham's Quarterly

27 mins | May 13, 2020

Rise of the drones

Drone technology spans a century's worth of science fiction and military research. "Despite the futuristic concept of robotic air warfare, drone technology goes back a hundred years. The technological groundwork was first established by genius inventor Nikola Tesla, who introduced radio-control technology at Madison Square Garden in 1898. Tesla immediately realized his invention's military potential, noting that the technology would allow man to build devastating remote weapons that would be a deterrent so inhuman and destructive that, in his imagination, they would 'lead to permanent peace between the nations.'" Rudolph Herzog delves in Lapham's Quarterly into the history of drones.