Automotive
William Nelson (1879-1903) was a General Electic employee who invented a new way to motorize bicycles.
He then fell off his prototype bike during a test run.
Ismail ibn Hammad al-Jawhari (1003 – 1010) was a Muslim Kazakh Turkic scholar from Farab, he attempted to fly using two wooden wings and a rope.
He leapt from the roof of a mosque in Nishapur and fell to his death.
Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier was the first know fatality in an air crash when his Roziere balloon crashed on June 15, 1785, while he and Pierre Romain were attempting to cross the English Channel.
Franz Reichelt (1879-1912) who was a tailor, fell to his death off the first deck of the Eiffel Tower while testing his coat parachute. It was the first ever attempt with the parachute and he had told the authorities in advance that he would test it first with a dummy (referring to himself?)
Henry Smolinski died in 1973, when he was killed during a test flight of the AVE Mizar,
a flying car based on the Ford Pinto and the sole product of the company he founded.
Michael Dacre died in 2009, after testing his flying taxi device
designed to accommodate fast and affordable travel among nearby cities.
Medical
Thomas Midgley, Jr. (1889-1944) was an American engineer and chemist who contracted polio at age 51, leaving him severely disabled. He devised an elaborate system of strings and pulleys to help other lift him from bed. This system was the eventual cause of his death when he was accidentally entangled in the ropes of this device and died of strangulation at the age of 55. He is more famous and infamous for developing not only the tetraethyl lead (TEL) additive to gasoline, but also chlorofluorocarbons (DFCs)
Physics
Marie Curie (1867-1934) invented the process to isolate radium after co-discovering the radioactive elements radium and polonium.
She died of aplastic anemia as a result of prolonged exposure to ionizing radiation emanating from her research materials.
Punishment
Li Si (208 BC) was Prime Minister during the Qin Dynasty
and was executed by the “Five Pains” method which he had devised.
James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton (1581) was executed in Edinburgh on the “Scottish Maiden”
which he had introduced to Scotland as Regent.
Space Exploration
Wan Hu, a sixteenth-century Chinese official, is said to have attempted to launch himself into outer space in a chair to which 47 rockets were attached.
The rockets exploded and, it is said, neither he nor the chair was ever seen again……….perhaps it worked??!!?
I knew none of this! Where did this ironic idea come from? Lesson learned: leave well enough alone. MER
I love you…………and well said……leave well enough alone!!!!!!
Holy Mackerel !!
Holy leaping Frenchmen!
Fascinating! I had never heard of any of this. Some of these inventors were a bit crazy! It did remind me of the death of Segway owner, Jimi Heselden, who went off a cliff to his death on a Segway. Stay safe and clear of new inventions.
Yes, stay with the tried and true!
Fascinating!! Good Know! love it……
Flying Ford Pintos………….who ever heard of such a thing!
Fun story! I LOVE this!!!
I love that the inventors of the horrific torture devices got a taste of their creations.
Very good indeed.
Yes, fascinating and sad.
A flying Pinto?? Oh man I thought I had seen it all.
I must agree with you………even back in the day I thought the design was bad, much less did I ever envision turning one into a flying mobile………YIKES
Marie Curie was the only one of these I knew about. Wow. So the moral of the story is, don’t invent/discover anything that can kill you later.
Yeah……….leave well enough alone is the consensus of the group!
I only knew about Marie Curie.Thank you for the informative post..so it seems that being smart and inventive comes with its own risks
Yes, let’s stay in the kitchen…………seems to be a pretty safe place!
Having burnt my feet last month with multiple second degree burns when my oven was leaking gas and I didn’t notice and tried to light it…I think the kitchen is not very safe either
I am so very sorry to hear about your burns! I hope you are healing well. How dreadful! You are such a marvelous cook and I so enjoy your blog. Please be careful………..we need your wonderful ideas!
Interesting!
Interesting and weird …………. just my cup of tea.
agree!
Great read, I’ll have some extra knowledge for the pub quiz now 🙂
I’ll be looking for you on a game show in the near future!
More fodder for the Darwin Award (except for Marie Curie) Virginia
Quite on point my dear!
How in heaven’s name did you come up with this idea? And the research? And which comes first, the weird and wonderful facts or the post idea?
Anyway, amazing.
LOL………….ahhh in the twisted metal mind of The Tin Man lies all sorts of sorted facts!
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