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infographics or by texting infographics to 500 500 One day in 1912, Franz Reichelt had a sudden
flash of inspiration. Today would be the day he became the first
man in history to glide from the Eiffel Tower to the ground wearing nothing but a flying
suit. What could ever go wrong? He hadn’t had the time to test his innovative
suit yet, but he was a professional tailor — he had faith in his work and the conviction
he’d reach the ground successfully. As his colleagues put a stool in place for
him to mount at the top of the 1000-foot tower, he took a gulp and slowly climbed on top. It was a long way down... But let’s leave Franz at the summit contemplating
his rash decision for a while. p He’s not the only lunatic — sorry, I
mean innovative inventor — the human race has known. Thomas Midgley was an acclaimed engineer and
chemist who obtained over one hundred patents. And he certainly had a knack for creations
that would turn out to be dangerous, destructive, or toxic. First, he had the genius idea of adding tetraethyl
lead to gasoline to solve the problem of engine knocking in cars. It worked — but it also turned out to damage
the environment and the public. The man even gave himself lead poisoning in
the process. But he wasn’t deterred. His next move was the invention of chlorofluorocarbon,
or CFC. You know, the stuff that aerosols release
that damages the ozone layer. At the time, CFC was revered as a pioneering
invention that would stop refrigerators leaking dangerous substances and gases. CFC was believed to be inflammable, stable,
noncorrosive, and safe for humans to breathe. To prove its safety, Midgley himself inhaled
a sizeable amount of the gas. As we now know, he turned out to be misled. But amazingly, Thomas Midgley wasn’t killed
by CFC or lead, although his run-ins no doubt did him some damage. Instead, his life took a tragic turn when
he contracted polio in 1944 at the young age of 51. Still convinced of his ingenuity as an inventor,
Midgley went ahead and invented something. This time, it didn’t involve any chemicals
or toxic substances: it was a simple yet smart system of strings and pulleys to help him
pull himself out of bed independently. Sounds harmless, right? For a few years, the system worked great,
helping Midgley retain the modicum of dignity he still had left after poisoning all of humanity
twice. But one day he became entangled in the ropes,
which strangled him to death. Once again, he’d done himself in. Okay, so maybe you’re asking for trouble
when you go around meddling with chemicals and giving huge, heavy contraptions to people
who have become semi-paralyzed. But William Bullock was a much more sensible
man. He came up with practical inventions like
the grain drill, seed planter, and eventually the rotary printing press, designed to increase
the speed of printing. Surely such a pioneering man wouldn’t have
a silly ending? Well, you’ve seen the title of the video,
you already know the answer. Just two years after his brilliant invention
that would revolutionize the printing industry, Bullock had a nasty accident whilst adjusting
his rotary press. His leg got caught in the machine and was
promptly crushed. I guess health and safety regulations weren’t
much of a concern in 1867. The inventor didn’t die instantly, but it
was the start of the end. He contracted gangrene in the wound and ended
up dying a few days later. It’s a tragic tale. Now, are you ready for something really crazy? Dying was the last thing Alexander Bogdanov
had in mind — in fact, he’d hoped to become immortal. Bear with me here. A true polymath, Bogdanov was a science fiction
writer, doctor, and cybernetics enthusiast. But it was his passion for medical research
that would lead him down a path of insanity and eventually cause his dire end. Researching blood transfusions, Bogdanov became
interested in their application to extending lives — or, in other words, making people
immortal. You can tell he was a fan of science fiction. The man was so convinced he was on to something
that he performed multiple transfusions on himself before having any proper evidence. It seemed to go well at first and he enthusiastically
published study after study about the positive effects of transfusions. He was convinced his eyesight had improved
and even that he’d stopped balding. Unfortunately, Bogdanov didn’t pay much
attention to where the blood was coming from. One day, he underwent a transfusion from a
student who turned out to have malaria, which would lead to his death in 1928. Would it have really been that terrible to
be bald and wear glasses? You might say that these inventors didn’t
know any better, but in the case of Horace Hunley, he almost certainly did. Hunley made submarines, which is pretty cool. What isn’t so cool is that he made lousy
submarines. His first submarine sank — and not in a
good submarine-y way, but in a sank-to-the-bottom-of-the-ocean-to-be-never found again way. Then he built a second submarine, and that
sank too. But Hunley wasn’t one to lose confidence
that easily, so he went on to build a third submarine. He even funded it with his own money, because
presumably sponsorship money was drying up by that point, and named it after himself. Bold. Sometimes faith is all you need, but not when
it comes to science and engineering. The submarine sank in 1963 with Hunley and
seven other crew-members inside, who all died. He obviously hadn’t got the memo that insanity
is doing the same thing twice and expecting different results. Speaking of insanity, it’s now time to look
at possibly the craziest guy on the list. His idea was so mad that even Evel Knievel,
one of the best-known stunt performers and daredevils ever, tried to warn him against
it. Enter the Czechoslovakian stuntman Karel Soucek. He had the genius idea to cross the super-dangerous
Niagara Falls whirlpool using various vehicles. First, he tried a moped along the cables of
a trolley, but failed when he hit a bolt and was derailed. Luckily he was wearing a safety harness, which
stopped him falling into the whirlpool. He lived to tell the tale. Then, he tried the same thing again in a barrel
of steel. This time, he ended up stranded for hours
in the whirlpool. Eventually he was rescued, and once again
he survived, although the police charged him for performing an unlicensed stunt. But he wasn’t prepared to give up just yet. Soucek’s idea of fun is clearly very different
from ours, because he decided to cross the whirlpool in a barrel again. Only this time, he custom-built a barrel himself,
made of lightweight metal and plastic to be shock-absorbent. It even had a two-way radio and a counterweight
in one end to ensure Soucek never landed headfirst. The barrel may have been well-thought-out,
but crossing the whirlpool in a home-made contraption was a mad move. That’s why Evel Knievel tried to step in
— but Soucek wasn’t listening to anyone. So, he set off. But something was wrong. The barrel started spinning as it plunged
down, so instead of landing in the tank that had been placed at the bottom to weather the
landing, it hit the edge. This made a larger impact than planned, giving
Soucek a fractured skull and crushing his chest. He was rushed to the hospital and died. Worse of all, the spectacle was part of the
Thrill Show and Destruction Derby, and there was an entire audience watching the event
take place. Since Soucek was inside the barrel, the spectators
didn’t realize what had happened, so they clapped and cheered with the impression the
stunt had been successful. Bet they felt bad afterward. Believe it or not, things get crazier. Michael Dacre had a dream. His dream was — wait for it — to build
a flying car. We’ve all been there. Only, he actually tried to make his dream
a reality. He became a pilot for the British army and
started his own flight crewing service. That’s when he invented the Jetpod: a tiny
airplane designed to have a short take-off and landing, allowing air passengers to travel
straight from airports in the middle of nowhere to city centers. One day, he was testing his prototype in Malaysia. Three times in a row he tried and failed to
set off , but he refused to take this as a warning sign. He kept trying. On the fourth attempt, Dacre successfully
set off into the air — but instead of a gradual takeoff, the vehicle shot up vertically
into the sky and plummeted straight down to earth. Dacre was killed in the crash. Because it went so well for Dacre, an engineer
called Henry Smolinski decided to give the whole flying car thing another go in 1973. One day, he thought he’d created the perfect
flying machine, so he drove it off the Eiffel Tower as a test run, a-la-Franz. Nah, I’m just kidding. But Henry did build a prototype. He fused a Ford Pinto with the rear end of
an airplane. Don’t ask me why he chose a Ford Pinto as
the vehicle of choice for this flagship project. The team also developed a set of adapters
so the driver could control the ailerons of the plane with the steering wheel. One day, Smolinski went ahead with an impromptu
test of his flying car. Unfortunately, the car had suffered faulty
welding and loose parts, and the wing strut detached. The weight was also way too much for the engine. Along with his business partner, Smolinski
died in a pillar of black smoke. You might have noticed a theme here: people
getting into accidents after trying to invent some kind of vehicle. Well, Valerian Abakovsky is no exception,
and no less insane. He’d invented something called the Aerowagon:
a high-speed railcar complete with an aircraft engine and propeller traction that he wanted
to use to transport Soviet officials between major cities. One day, he gave the vehicle a test run. I know, you’ve heard it all before. The test run went fine — for the outgoing
journey. But on the return, the car was going at a
high speed when it derailed, killing Abakosvky and five other Communists. I’m not done yet. Rocket science has a bad rep for its difficulty,
but that wasn’t going to deter Max Valier. After reading about the joys of rockets, he
set out on a mission to develop a rocket-powered car. Don’t worry, he wasn’t hoping for it to
fly, he just wanted it to go really, really fast. Eventually, he created a car that could go
at 250 miles an hour. Perfect and so useful — if what you’re
looking for is a car with the capacity to cause road accidents. He then began to work on a rocket-assisted
aircraft. In 1920, Max was working on a rocket motor
made of liquid oxygen-gasoline, when the entire thing exploded. A piece of shrapnel flew into one of his arteries,
severing it and killing him. The car never came to be, but Max’s death
wasn’t in vain — the technology he worked on helped the first man land on the moon. Now, ready to hear something gruesome? It’s not just in the last few centuries
that it’s become in vogue for inventors to kill themselves using their own inventions. As early as 221 BC, influential politician
Li Si got in on the trend. Li Si invented a torture method called the
Five Pains, which involved cutting off the nose, hand, and foot of a person before castrating
them and killing them by cutting them in half. He was a real charmer. Some inventors want to make the world a better
place, others just want to find more ways to bring suffering. When Li Si was convicted of treason, he got
a taste of his own medicine and met the same fate. And they say Karma isn’t real. But back to our plucky tailor Franz who is
still waiting at the top of the Eiffel Tower, ready to jump. Franz had designed his wingsuit based on the
principle that, by adding more surface area to the body, humans would be able to descend
to the ground slowly and gracefully. Luckily, he wasn’t so deluded that he thought
a special suit alone could enable humans to fly — he also added in a parachute that
would be released during the fall. What could ever go wrong? Remember, this wingsuit had never actually
been tested. The original plan was to have a test run with
a dummy, but Franz was something of a free spirit. For him, it was a matter of pride to show
faith in his inventions and take the first jump with no evidence behind him. The wingsuit he created looked like a cloak
with a big hood, so it’s hard to be optimistic about its effectiveness. But what about the parachute? Surely that would save him, right? To activate the parachute, all Franz had to
do was extend his arms out to put his body into a cross position. Only, the parachute collapsed around him,
so he had a free fall to the ground. He died of a heart attack before he’d even
reached the bottom. Check out our videos about dreams that can
kill you in real life and people who have died by taking selfies.
