This reminds me of a high school paper I wrote
In my opinion, Edison was a real jerk who often took advantage of people. Yeah, he was smart and could be considered a genius, but he was still an idiot. One of the facts I heard about him that caused me to really dislike him happened during the "Battle of the Currents". As Edison was fighting for the use of DC power, and Tesla was fighting for the use of AC power (which Tesla alone discovered the means to generate), Edison found it necessary to prove how "dangerous" AC electricity was. Several demonstrations took place in public, one of which was what reloadron mentioned, and that was the killing of an elephant (video
here). He used far too many volts than would be used in homes, which made this demonstration very unrealistic. However, he also hired several neighborhood children to steal small cats and dogs out of their owners' yards, and Edison would use them for his demonstrations as well, killing them with AC electricity. He was a very cruel man and is not worthy of the credit he has been given.
Tesla fought back, but used himself as the subject of his demonstrations. He would demonstrate the effect of AC on his own body. If you ask me, Tesla was one of the greatest scientists the world has ever seen, and should be given much more credit.
That's my opinion, anyway.
Der Strom