Hi...I had known about Mileva Maric and her contributions to Al's work, and of their somewhat tragic marriage circumstances. More here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mileva_Maric
But I've always been fascinated with the fact that so much of the foundations of the development of 20th century science and engineering came from the Serbia/Croatian culture, if we are to assume her significant contributions to relativity theory. Of course the other giant in all of this was Tesla, whose father was a Serbian Orthodox priest, and who never married.
Tesla, so like TTB, received little if any credit for his work other than recognition from his science and engineering peers of the time. Litttle money, scant rewards or kudos from his economic sponsors, but it is now acknowledged by almost everyone that the 20th century might never have happpened, technologically, without his innovations.
Many here know the stories, but as Mr. Short pointed out. the FTM puzzle, at least timewise (sorry) probably transcends Dr. Brown's work. He also believes that the basics of this work was somehow "lost".
Upon Tesla's death in a NYC hotel in early 1943, the safe in his room and his various extant research materials were put in the custody of government officials, and a good portion of this stuff was supposedly turned over to the Yugoslavian government ofter WWII. I've always speculated that FTM work involving Tesla probably was conducted in his lab in NYC in the late 1890's, and also likely in conjunction with physicists/scientists at the University of Chicago around the time of the 1893 World's Fair.
Nothing definite, but there are records of consultations and collaborations occurring in Chicago at about the time of the Fair, and the fairgrounds is where the campus of the University grew up. Besides Mark Twain wrote the first popular American time travel story, a Connecticutt Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and he was one of Tesla's buddies during this period. There's also a spectacular sculpture arrangement on the west end of the University's midway excecuted by Lorado Taft titled, The Fountain of Time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_of_Time
If anybody has an interest in chewing on what the FBI has made available to the public regarding Tesla, have fun:
http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/tesla.htm
flow....