10 Inventors Who Died By Their Own Inventions [from 1010 to 2020.]

This is Franz Reichschild. The cloth-made backpack he's wearing is a wearable parachute prototype. Now, by the title of this video, you can probably guess what happened to Reichschild. In the new episode of Little Globe, we are covering 10 inventors who died by their own inventions. It's year 1912. Reichschild is standing on the first platform of the Eiffel Tower, preparing to jump. But how did he find himself in this situation? After he conducted several successful experiments with dummies dropped from the fifth floor of his new apartment, Reichschild was unable to replicate those early successes with any of his subsequent designs. He believed that a test from a higher platform would prove his invention's efficiency, so he petitioned for permission to conduct a test from the Eiffel Tower. He has told French authorities that he planned to test the suit using dummies, but when he arrived at the Reichschild made it clear that he wants to jump himself even after several friends tried to dissuade him, mentioning wind, speed, and other factors like his previously unsuccessful experiments with dummies. Reichschild, being confident in his invention, jumped from the first platform of the Eiffel Tower, his parachute folded around him almost immediately, and he hit the ground 187 feet or 57 meters below. There are a lot of cars flying in the future memes, but in 1973 it was briefly possible. Engineer Henry Smolinski wanted to create a commercially viable flying car. He took the wings of the Cessna 337 aircraft and joined it to a Ford Pinto and called it AVE Mizar. It was capable of flying 12,000 feet above the ground and 130 miles per hour, and production was scheduled to begin in 1974. On September 11, 1973, Smolinski and his friend, the vice president of advanced vehicle engineers Harold Blake, took Mizar for a test flight at Camarillo, and during it, the right-wing strut detached from the Pinto. Unable to control the aircraft, Smolinski and Blake crashed. In addition to poor design and loose parts, bad welds were partially responsible for the crash. Number three on our list is Horace Lawson Hunley, a marine engineer in the Confederate States of America. He was the inventor of the first war submarine. Now you can probably guess what happened here. First submarine prototypes were prone to breaking and accidents. After two unsuccessful attempts at building a submarine, Hunley, funded by himself, built a third submarine that could supposedly reach four knots. On October 15, 1863, even though he wasn't part of the crew, Hunley decided to take command during a routine exercise. The vessel sank with all eight crew members, including Hunley himself. The vessel was later raised and used again in 1864 in the first successful sinking of an enemy vessel by a submarine in naval history. Next on our list is a Czechoslovakian-born stuntman Karel Suchek, who built a shock-absorbent barrel. The stunt that made him famous happened in 1984 when Suchek went over Niagara Falls in his custom-built barrel that was nine feet long and five feet in diameter. He emerged alive and safe with only minor injuries and was fined $500 for performing the stunt without a license. Having tasted success, Suchek decided to build a museum at Niagara Falls, Ontario, and to finance his project, he convinced a corporation to sponsor another stunt. The one that was his last, dropping the barrel with Suchek inside, 180 feet from the top of the Houston Astrodome into a tank of water as part of a thrill show and destruction derby, to be held on 20 January 1985. Even stuntman Evel Knievel had tried to persuade Suchek not to go through with the stunt, calling it the most dangerous I have ever seen. When the barrel was released, it began to spin dangerously, hitting the rim of the water tank instead of landing in the center. Suchek passed away in the hospital while the show was still going on. This video wouldn't be complete without at least one bizarre example on our list. William Bullock, an inventor who revolutionized the printing industry by creating a rotary printing machine in which the images to be printed were put on a roller and then could be printed on any substrate. On April 3, 1867, a few years after his invention, he was making adjustments to one of his new presses. William tried to kick a driving belt onto a pulley, but his foot got crushed into the new machine during the installation. After a few days, he developed gangrene, and on April 12, William died during a surgery to amputate the leg. Number six on our list is a two-times Nobel Prize winner, physicist and chemist Marie Curie. You have probably heard of Curie's research on radioactivity, and since the damaging effects of the ionizing radiation weren't known at the time of her work, she developed aplastic anemia, believed to have been contracted from her long-term exposure to radiation. Curie used to carry test tubes containing radioactive isotopes in her pocket. She stored them in her desk drawer and remembers the faint light that the substances gave off in the dark. For many years, people have been trying to come up with machines and contraptions that would lift them up into the sky. Ismail is one of those people. He was a Muslim Kazakh Turkic scholar from Faroe. In the year of 1010, he attempted to fly like a bird using two wooden wings and a rope. He leapt from the roof of a mosque in Nishapur and fell to his death. Number eight on our list is Alexander Bogdanov, a Russian physician, philosopher, and a science fiction writer. In 1924, he started his blood transfusion experiments, apparently hoping to achieve eternal youth, or at least partial rejuvenation. After taking 11 blood transfusions, he was satisfied with the improvement of his eyesight, suspension of balding, and other positive symptoms. In 1978, he took the blood of a student suffering from malaria and tuberculosis, who may have also been the wrong blood type, and it cost him his life. Michael Hughes, also known as Mad Mike Hughes, was an American limousine driver, professed flat-earther, and a daredevil known for flying in self-built steam rockets. After several experiments with rockets throughout the years, Hughes was attempting to launch to 5,000 feet into the air on a private property near Barstow, California. That same day, upon liftoff, Hughes' parachute malfunctioned, and he crashed at the age of 64 on 22 February 2020. Number 10 on our list is Thomas Andrews, the Irish architect who became the principal designer for the infamous RMS Titanic. As the naval architect in charge of the plans for the ocean liner RMS Titanic, he was traveling on board the vessel during her transatlantic maiden voyage in 1912. Andrews predicted the fate of Titanic really well. After comparing blueprints of the ship with the damage done by the iceberg, Andrews immediately predicted that the ship would sink in less than two hours, therefore saving hundreds of lives. Fifteen minutes before the Titanic sank, Andrews was reportedly seen standing alone in the smoke room, staring at the bathing Plymouth Harbor above the fireplace.