September 8, 2022 • 31 mins
Humans can swim, though not as well as a fish. Humans can run, though not as swift as a cheetah. From ancient civilization to the modern day, no human being can fly unaided. In this first of a long-running series, Ben, Noel and Max explore inventors across history who died while trying to fly.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Let's give it up for
the man, the myth legend, our own mad genius super producer,
Mr Max Williams, and they call me Ben. I would
like to introduce one of my personal favorite mad geniuses,
(00:50):
the one and only Mr Noel Brown, who me yes you,
thanks buddy. You're you're mad. You're a bit of a
bit of a mad genius. You're so sort of mad scientist,
a nutty professor of of of of fiction and fact.
You uh and you served as our exclusive research associate
(01:13):
on today's episode, which is I think at the makings
of maybe one of those series that we promised to
make a series and then only ever do one or two. Instead,
we swear this one has legs leg no suf John Stevens,
We're actually gonna do it. I'm gonna say this right now.
I am on this case. I have a whole tab
in the document dedicated to these Now will we ever
(01:35):
look at the tab that that's up to debate? But
I have a tab cal there is the Episodes in
Perpetuity folks peep behind the ridiculous curtain. Uh. Some time ago,
the three of us, who are actual friends in real life,
the three of us became enamored with, uh, this idea
(02:00):
of inventors who died as a result of their inventions. Now,
this is tragic. There is human life lost in every
single case. But there's something I don't know, There's something
oddly inspiring about it, Like the the ability to invent,
to take something from your imagination and create some version
(02:23):
of it in the physical world. It's an almost but
not entirely human skill. It doesn't always go as planned,
and uh speaking, things not always going as planned. I
think we thought this would be at first. I don't
know about you guys, but at first I thought this
would be one and done episode or maybe a two parter.
(02:47):
But as we were, as we were diving into the research,
we realized a lot of people have died as a
direct result of their own and chips you gotta laugh
at so yeah, I mean, you gotta give them credit
for putting their money where their mouth is, right. I mean,
(03:09):
you can only test things with like dummies or lab
raths or whatever for so long. It's also it's also
kind of a trope in like comic books, you know,
like Bruce Banner kind of gammar ate himself into the
Hulk or whatever. Mobius first name was shot himself up
with magic bat juice, you know, to cure his disability,
(03:29):
but also you know, transformed him into a bloodsucking creature
of the night with bad c g I fangs who
fought against a doctor who. Uh that that's a it's
a bad movie. Just just but you know it happens
in real life too. It happens in real life too. Again.
You know, the real scientists have tragically had their lives
(03:49):
cut short in the search of greatness and sometimes you know,
the achievement of greatness, but often sometimes do that is
where their story ends until today. I love what a
wonderful setup. Yeah, today we are uh, we are asking
you to travel with us ridiculous historians through a cavalcade
(04:10):
of catastrophes, a listical of tragic ridicule. Uh. It's oddly
inspiring perhaps, and we promise we're not going to end
on a downer. Note these stories are peak ridiculous history. Uh.
This first iteration of what may or may not to
your point, and it will be a continuing series. Uh,
(04:32):
this first iteration focuses on people who died trying to fly,
And there's a lot of like Far Side Gary Larson
stuff about this. I know we're all big fans of
Far Side, and if you have not somehow heard of
Far Side, you should. If you enjoy laughter. If you
(04:53):
don't enjoy laughter, that's fine, go, you know, go back
to the goth albums. But Far Side. Also, why do
we choose flight first? Well, human beings have always been
captivated by flight by heights. You know, human skin swim,
not as well as fish or orca or dolphins, but
(05:16):
you know humans can swim, right, Uh, who's that guy
who swims? Really? Well, what's his name? Michael Felts aquaman? Second,
I'm stick in a comic book, not name or or
nail or whatever the guy's name. The other the knockoff
version of the King of Atlantis is a mutant and
(05:38):
not not humans. Still alright, nerd whatever? Still? Still? You
know human beings can run, not as swiftly as a
cheetah or an antelope. Actually, early humans use their ability
to run far distances rather than sprinting. Humans are persistent hunts,
(06:00):
you know, old school originally before grocery stores, but right now,
as we record from ancient history all the way too,
there is no human being that can fly without the
aid of technology. And come on, folks, if you're listening
to this and you're a human as well, you know
(06:22):
how people are not being able to fly watching all
those birds and insects flitter about. That bugged us, That
bugged us immensely. And today's Yeah, I mean, like, what
is it? The Leonardo of course, the famous uh you know,
he was one of the the original inventors in at
least in terms of like you know, writing down his
(06:43):
his results and his experimentation and uh, the flying machine.
You know, whether or not it would actually work in
the way he designed it was something that was kind
of indicative of what you're talking about. Then this idea,
the man for generation centuries has been seeking to take flight. Yeah, yeah,
you know, it's it's such a common thing in the
(07:05):
human experience that it's very difficult. It's virtually impossible to
pinpoint the first attempt at human flight. Uh. We have
to first ask ourselves the same question that our our
old school folks at how Stuff Works asked, how do
(07:26):
we define flight? Shout out to our pal Robert Lamb,
who wrote an excellent article for How Stuff Works. You
may recognize Robert as a founder and co host of
Stuff to Blow your Mind. Uh. He will maybe one
day no class up to our our show if we
can get him his writers crazy. I mean, I know
(07:47):
it really is not the brown Eminem's in the whole
nine yards. But you mentioned the idea of like, you know,
how long has it been or what was the first
time that that that man, you know, our human humans,
uh sought to fly? I would argue you could ask
that same question that you do around, like who was
the first person to eat an oyster? You know? Or
who was the first person that ate a mushroom and
achieved the psychedelic state? I bet you real early on
(08:10):
in the in the very early days of humanity, someone
just stepped off a cliff because they didn't know better.
It just seemed like a very an urge, Like you know, what,
what if if I get a good running jump, maybe
I could wildly coyote myself, you know, into the stratosphere
and then there's that moment where the you know, they
float for a second and the ground drops out and
they die. Um, but I bet that happened. And I know,
(08:31):
you know, I think I think we learn that we
cannot fly, but without observable negative results, who knows what
we may have tried. You don't even hear about kids
getting hurt, trying to be Superman, jumping off of roofs
and whatnot. Yeah, that's true. The human brain is an
(08:55):
amazing whereas Fiona Apple would say, an extraordinary machine. You're
absolutely right. Well, like, if you are an early human
being and you see a bird, let's say it's a
big bird, right, uh not sesame street big bird, but
you know, like a like an apex aerial predator, and
(09:16):
you see the way it flies, then you're thinking, oh,
I have things that kind of look like wings, have
got these two limbs closest to my head, and I'm
sad that this is an audio show because I am
flapping my best I'm flapping my arms as well as
I can and I'm still on the ground. So that's
(09:36):
very irritating to early humans. But to your point about
running off a cliff and just giving it ago, uh,
why not? We can't. We have to be careful not
to be dismissive of the stories we're about to talk
about because these folks, we've all died trying to fly.
(09:57):
Each one of them was a pioneer in their day
and in some cases, uh, their their work is part
of the reason that we can hop on commercial airlines today. Like, no, you, uh,
I know, I know you are not adverse to plane flights.
I think you prefer a train if possible. Is that correct? Oh,
(10:20):
only because of the logistics of it. I mean, if
there is a way of taking a train, you lose
so much time and and and it's so stressful, just
like waiting in lion security and just hustling to the airport.
And you know, trains like you're right there in a
city center and then you go. It takes longer than
a flight, but the time you save on the front
and the back end, you know, you're right there in
the city center of like saying New York when you come.
(10:41):
But now, I mean, trains are not obviously, you know,
reasonable or logistically sound for all forms of travel. But man,
isn't nice. It's also just very relaxing, nice scenery. Yeah,
you see parts of the world that you wouldn't normally
see train travel. Travel by rail in the US is
a subject for a future episode. But if you don't
(11:02):
live in the US and you're tuning in, you're probably
rolling your eyes and thinking Americans, you don't know how
real rail transit works. This it is. It is actually
logistically easier to fly in this country than it is
to ride commercial rail. But it's only easier to fly
(11:25):
because of these folks were talking about now knowing that
we cannot figure out the first person who saw a
bird and said, why oh y can't I uh, we
do know one early guy, one early guy from modern
day Kazakhstan. His name is Abu Naser al Jawari. This
(11:50):
is the like the first thousand years common era right
or um a d after the death of Christ, they
would call it. Uh. He was a really smart dude.
He wrote a dictionary, his magnum opus katab Saha Luga.
(12:10):
And he died, as far as we can tell, by
trying to fly. And he was again a very smart man.
You need to know this going in. He died because
he wanted to fly, and he jumped off a roof,
either a mosque or in some accounts, his own home,
(12:33):
and he did it with two wooden wings and some
rope linking the wings, so it's just like flappitty flapping,
flappity flat. I mean, this guy seems like he was
a talented linguist, uh, but maybe he didn't quite grasp
physics in the way that would be necessary for attempting
something like this. For sure, no, no, no other kind
(12:59):
need a lie. But can you imagine though, that moment
when you jump off the roof and then you're just
like the flappity flap flap flow. And again we're gonna
these are some Darwin Awards level goofs here, so we're
gonna laugh. All human life is valuable on all that.
But the image here is cartoonish, as you would say, bad.
(13:20):
It really is like some acme, like he bought peace
from ACME and they just better failure, you know, And
he's just like, yeah, I got this. Wait a minute, nah,
you know, die, I agree with you. I hate the
sound callous, but I picture I picture our pal here
on the top of the structure, whether it's his Homer's mosque,
(13:41):
and someone's going, hey man, this is sort of crazy.
Do you want to you want to just do you
want to just try to like run down a hill
and get up to speed. And he goes. I wrote
a dictionary. Flappitty flap flap flat. Yeah, one one set
of skills does not necessarily equate to the other. Just
and now we have to talk. Well, let's fast forward
(14:02):
a bit. There's a there's another guy who was instrumental
in in an old obsession of ours hot air balloon traveling. Uh.
This guy, Jean Francois checked me on the French here, Noel,
how are we doing, Jean Francois pilatre de Rosier pilt.
(14:25):
I don't know, man, I'm just over there. It's got
a little upside down the little schwa thing over the
a whatever you call that. So I'm thinking that the
a is maybe a yah pil pilatre, that's my guesser.
Al Right, well, what what's what's this guy's deal? Yeah,
he was a balloonist. Um. He invented a type of
(14:46):
balloon around seventy eighty five called the Rosier balloon Um
that named after himself, of course, And he was trying
to do one of those things, you know, those around
the world and eighty days kind of deals, you know,
like be the first to circumnavigate you know, one of those.
But this is specifically Uh, crossing the English Channel via balloon,
(15:07):
and it was he made a noble attempt. This was
no flappity flappity, you know, boobe. It was a little
more you know, thought out than that. Yeah, and he
had he had some stripes for the time. Uh. He
was a man who had made several successful hot air
balloon flights using balloons of different designs. But our boy,
(15:31):
Jean Francois has uh an innovation in his balloon. He's
got something up his envelope for all the balloonist stuff there. Uh.
This guy has this combination of hydrogen and hot air
and that ultimately leads to his undoing. They're going over
the English Channel, like you say, but the wind changes.
(15:54):
It pushes him and his partner back something like five
kilometers over land, and the balloon catches fire and it
deflates and they drop like a rock from about fred
feet of elevation. Uh. It's a sad story because about
(16:15):
eight days later, his former fiance also passes away in
what contemporaneous sources suspect was a a suicide based on heartbreak.
But if you visit if you visit the crash site today,
you can see an obelisk erected in his honor, and
I think it's worth the time if you ever find
(16:36):
yourself in way Moro. Again not a native French speaker,
and I recommended that pronunciation, which is likely incorrect. It
might be wimero. It's in the Pas de calais, so
airship societe. Right, there are are two examples so far.
(16:58):
Sound kind of audacious. Right. We have one person jumping
and flapping as hard as they can with wooden wings
which are also heavier than air. And then we have
another guy who was onto something, but due to the
um ephemeral, capricious nature of the wind, he is led
(17:24):
to an early demise. And I I love the point.
I love the point we made earlier. We can't dismiss
these folks as crackpots. They were doing cutting edge research
and they resulted in their work lad to innovations. This
is where look, you thought I was leaning in on
your on your French. No, I know that, uh, in
(17:46):
our long time ridiculous historians. You also know that once
upon a time, our man Mr Brown was a young
German boy. So I want to give you, I don't
want to give you the honors. We're gonna have some
fun with some jo. We've got to introduce a guy
named Otto Lelandhal, the Flying Man of Germany. Oh boy, yeah, uh,
(18:16):
he's the real deal man. He actually developed the technology
uh if you can call, yeah, of course you can call.
With that behind what is considered the modern wing. He
attempted flights in eight one that are still seen today
as being the very earliest stages of true human flight
of aeronautics. And let's see, this is a fun one. Okay,
(18:40):
I'm gonna give this a track. He I love the
overly long and and and just bespoke German words for
very simple concepts. Uh. One of my favorites is not
a civil concept at all. But there's a German word
referring to collective national guilt over the Holocaust. And then
his heights bivout to go wow, and folks, no did
(19:03):
that from memory? Yeah? Yeah, it's just the one that
I always you know, could people think of far fignugen,
which is just sounds funny. This means just the joy
of travel or driving. Um, but yeah, Bevan and heights
poved to going. It's just like literally means collective guilt
over specifically the Holocaust. But here we go let's see,
um Otto the flying Man invented this thing that he
(19:24):
called the uh Lidenthal normal Zagel apparats normal apparat. Yes,
A just means apparatus and normal means normal. Right, I
think we're onto something. Yes, the little to normal, No,
(19:45):
yours was way more like feisty, fiery, spicy it like
you're angry, right yeah? And so no, what what was this?
What was the normal segal aparat? Well, it is what
is considered to be the first airplane um in series production,
and it resulted in a company that was essentially, you know,
(20:08):
an assembly line style kind of like the closest to
modern uh factory production specs that we was see today.
And the company was called Machine and Fabrique, which just
means like fabrication, you know, of like metal and stuff.
Atto Linenthal the first airplane production company in the entire world.
This guy is killing it, you know, and he changed
(20:30):
the world. Honestly, I he may deserve an episode all
his own, but for our purposes, maybe we simply acknowledge
that he is often not for nothing called their aviation
as well as the father of flight. And we have
to get back to our unfortunate theme. I'm so glad
you mentioned the Darwin Awards. Nol Otto loved gliders. He's
(20:55):
born in Prussia May Even as a kid, he is
studying the flights of local birds. Like he is in
grammar school. Other kids are playing in the you know,
playground or gymnasium or what have you. And uh, he
and his brother aren't playing games with the other kids.
(21:19):
They are watching birds perch on branches, watching them hit
the ground, take off all the things that birds are
famous for. And just like our earliest example, Otto and
his brother again at a young age, they make strap
on wings and they try to fly. Thankfully for history,
(21:43):
they don't jump from uh, such great heights, you know,
they're just they there may be sprayed in some ankles,
but they're not They're not dying. The guy goes on
to become a engineer by trade. He goes to several
different academic institutions, and in eighteen sixty seven he is
(22:09):
a grown guy doing actual science, researching how to how
to better understand air and therefore aviation. But he has
to go serve in the Franco Prussian War. He goes
back from the war, he survives, he's an engineer. Still,
(22:30):
he gets a patent. But this surprised me. It's not
a patent for uh, it's not a patent for anything
related to aviation. It's for a mining machine. And he
makes these things called tubular boilers. He makes boilers and
steam engines. He could have stopped there. He was a success, right,
he could have just been like a mining magnate for sure.
(22:53):
I love that you have tubular boilers. It makes me
think of tubular belts from from the but not that
something different. But no, this guy man, he's like, he's
really on a roll, and some serious achievements havevier than
their flight ding ding ding. He apparently built a man
made hill. What's that about, right, Yeah, yeah, he's he's
(23:15):
thinking these hills are okay, but I need a specific
take off point. I need this gentle elevation of a
very particular sort. And that's kind of cool, building your
own hill to carry out your glider experiments after you
have already become a famous mining inventor. He also creates
(23:39):
an important patent. We know this because outside of the
invention seperc act, which is a real thing. Tune into
stuff they don't want you to know. Outside of that
insidious little law, the u s patent of records are
public and so this is how we know that Auto
has create did this bar to carry and fly a
(24:03):
hang glider. And for just a few years in the
eighteen nineties, our man Atto is that glider king. He
makes thousands, literally thousands of flights in gliders that he
is designed. He does this in with his first glider version,
the Dead viitsor glider uh, and he continues this. He's
(24:25):
on a roll until his death in eight but he
is for that brief period of time, for those five
halcyon years, he is world famous. People are taking photos
of his gliders, photos of his flights, Scientists are writing
about it. Right the popular publications of the day are
(24:48):
showing these pictures. You can see a lot of this
at the Leylandal Museum over in Germany. But alas those
who fly first seem too often fall first as well.
So no, I think it's I think it's time we
talked about his last slide. Yeah, I mean, you know,
(25:10):
if you're gonna, if you're if you if you're this
kind of this kind of cat, you can think of
worse ways to go out. So in August nine, a
day after my birthday, in well before I was born. Um.
A little over a hundred and twenty six years ago,
Otto went to his usual weekend spot at the Rhino Hills.
Perfect weather for a flight, great day for a flight, sunny,
(25:32):
not too hot, around sixty eight degrees. Things go well.
At first. He was able to reach a distance around
eight hundred and twenty feet UH in his normal glider,
but then things changed Um during his fourth flight. Yeah,
if you have ever if you have ever made a
paper airplane, you're awesome. If you have not made a
(25:57):
paper airplane, you have some adventures. There are a lot
of fun and they'll teach you about gliding and narrow dynamics.
This guy is an expert. But like you said, no
and steering his fourth flight, when his vehicle pitches forward,
the glider nose dives, and if you've seen a paper
plane nose dive before, you know what we're talking about.
(26:19):
This is bad news for him, and he knows this.
Without getting into the weeds of physics here, this kind
of glider relies on shifting one's weight, and when you're
heading straight down, when you're plummeting, it's very difficult to
make that weight shift successfully. So it's like it's like
(26:41):
if you're trying to steer out of a swerve in
a car, and he's trying to essentially steer out of
the swerve, he can't regain control. He falls from the air.
About yeah, and unfortunately it wasn't a super quick death. Um.
One of his associates, a guy named Paul Bailey, who
was his mechanic, was on the scene. He ran to
(27:03):
his side and and then raised him to a doctor
in the city of Stone. This was in the olden days.
Even though this guy is making serious leaps and bounds
in terms of flight, we are still living in the
days of horse drawn carriages. So uh, the rough ride
that that would have entailed probably didn't help the dude
already being super banged up. This one isn't a funny one.
(27:26):
This one is like truly kind of a bummer. And
this guy really, you know, he was important. He really
made some serious, uh you know, advancements in the field,
and he was kind of a freak accident. Like he
he wasn't being a wing nut, you know, he really
just kind of the conditions sort of got the better
of him. He sustained some pretty serious injuries that he
(27:46):
was just not going to recover from, including a fractured
third cervical vertebrae. Um. He actually lost consciousness and was
moved via a cargo train to Berlin. Uh and then
take and the next morning to a doctor by the
name of Ernst von Bergmann Um who was a very
very very famous and sought after surgeon. Because again this
(28:08):
guy was a big deal, like they were going to
give him the best treatment possible, but unfortunately did pass
away a few hours later. Um, about thirty six hours
after the crash. Um, you know it was. It was
it would be the last flight for for Germany's flying man. Yeah.
And interesting side note, his last words are a matter
(28:30):
of debate for historians today. Off, Mike uh Noel, you
and I have talked at length about how how accurate
reports of people's last words are, because I think we're
both of the mind that most people's last words or
something like death rattle. Yeah yeah, I mean, you know,
(28:53):
it's like we'd all like to think that we were
gonna say some momentous poetic thing on our deathbed, but
chances are our wits are not going to be fully
about us, you know, under these types of circumstances. So
I'm with you, Ben, I'm always a little bit skeptical.
It makes for a good story, I do. Yeah, one
(29:16):
for the Kipper. What's the other one? That was a movie?
That was a movie, but it's it's a it's a
great example of you know, schmaltzy kind of like last word,
material death is not fun or romantic or poetic. Most
of this because both of us contest. Yeah. Also that
was Oscar Wilde who reputedly said, either the wallpaper goes
(29:39):
or I do, And then Ja ga Vera apparently said, shoot, fool,
you will only killing a man. But what what is
the purported final statement of the Flying Man of Germany?
What was he saying, well, we'll give you the German
and then and then the translation reportedly he said, up
(30:01):
fa mussen gebracht vadden, which which basically translates to sacrifices
must be made, which is you know, kind of a
theme of this episode in terms of the advancement of humanity.
You gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet,
and all that you gotta crack a few skulls to
to make humans fly. There we are, uh now, of course,
(30:24):
the staff of the Auto leland Thal museum will tell
you this is likely an historical invention, but still it's
an epic declaration. And here we are going to pause folks,
just like France on the first deck of the Eiffel Tower.
This is the end of part one of our two
part series on people who died trying to fly. Thanks
(30:46):
as always to our super producer, Mr Max Williams. Indeed
thanks to Alice Williams who can post this theme. Christopher
Stiotis eaves, Jeff co At both here in spirit, Christopher
soon to be here in in the flesh. We promised
for ages. Yeah, but I definitely button holed him over
(31:06):
in Dallas, and I think you did too. We sat
down with him in person and said you gotta come
back him a good button only. Let's see you next steps.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
(31:28):
your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Let's give it up for
the man, the myth legend, our own mad genius super producer,
Mr Max Williams, and they call me Ben. I would
like to introduce one of my personal favorite mad geniuses,
(00:50):
the one and only Mr Noel Brown, who me yes you,
thanks buddy. You're you're mad. You're a bit of a
bit of a mad genius. You're so sort of mad scientist,
a nutty professor of of of of fiction and fact.
You uh and you served as our exclusive research associate
(01:13):
on today's episode, which is I think at the makings
of maybe one of those series that we promised to
make a series and then only ever do one or two. Instead,
we swear this one has legs leg no suf John Stevens,
We're actually gonna do it. I'm gonna say this right now.
I am on this case. I have a whole tab
in the document dedicated to these Now will we ever
(01:35):
look at the tab that that's up to debate? But
I have a tab cal there is the Episodes in
Perpetuity folks peep behind the ridiculous curtain. Uh. Some time ago,
the three of us, who are actual friends in real life,
the three of us became enamored with, uh, this idea
(02:00):
of inventors who died as a result of their inventions. Now,
this is tragic. There is human life lost in every
single case. But there's something I don't know, There's something
oddly inspiring about it, Like the the ability to invent,
to take something from your imagination and create some version
(02:23):
of it in the physical world. It's an almost but
not entirely human skill. It doesn't always go as planned,
and uh speaking, things not always going as planned. I
think we thought this would be at first. I don't
know about you guys, but at first I thought this
would be one and done episode or maybe a two parter.
(02:47):
But as we were, as we were diving into the research,
we realized a lot of people have died as a
direct result of their own and chips you gotta laugh
at so yeah, I mean, you gotta give them credit
for putting their money where their mouth is, right. I mean,
(03:09):
you can only test things with like dummies or lab
raths or whatever for so long. It's also it's also
kind of a trope in like comic books, you know,
like Bruce Banner kind of gammar ate himself into the
Hulk or whatever. Mobius first name was shot himself up
with magic bat juice, you know, to cure his disability,
(03:29):
but also you know, transformed him into a bloodsucking creature
of the night with bad c g I fangs who
fought against a doctor who. Uh that that's a it's
a bad movie. Just just but you know it happens
in real life too. It happens in real life too. Again.
You know, the real scientists have tragically had their lives
(03:49):
cut short in the search of greatness and sometimes you know,
the achievement of greatness, but often sometimes do that is
where their story ends until today. I love what a
wonderful setup. Yeah, today we are uh, we are asking
you to travel with us ridiculous historians through a cavalcade
(04:10):
of catastrophes, a listical of tragic ridicule. Uh. It's oddly
inspiring perhaps, and we promise we're not going to end
on a downer. Note these stories are peak ridiculous history. Uh.
This first iteration of what may or may not to
your point, and it will be a continuing series. Uh,
(04:32):
this first iteration focuses on people who died trying to fly,
And there's a lot of like Far Side Gary Larson
stuff about this. I know we're all big fans of
Far Side, and if you have not somehow heard of
Far Side, you should. If you enjoy laughter. If you
(04:53):
don't enjoy laughter, that's fine, go, you know, go back
to the goth albums. But Far Side. Also, why do
we choose flight first? Well, human beings have always been
captivated by flight by heights. You know, human skin swim,
not as well as fish or orca or dolphins, but
(05:16):
you know humans can swim, right, Uh, who's that guy
who swims? Really? Well, what's his name? Michael Felts aquaman? Second,
I'm stick in a comic book, not name or or
nail or whatever the guy's name. The other the knockoff
version of the King of Atlantis is a mutant and
(05:38):
not not humans. Still alright, nerd whatever? Still? Still? You
know human beings can run, not as swiftly as a
cheetah or an antelope. Actually, early humans use their ability
to run far distances rather than sprinting. Humans are persistent hunts,
(06:00):
you know, old school originally before grocery stores, but right now,
as we record from ancient history all the way too,
there is no human being that can fly without the
aid of technology. And come on, folks, if you're listening
to this and you're a human as well, you know
(06:22):
how people are not being able to fly watching all
those birds and insects flitter about. That bugged us, That
bugged us immensely. And today's Yeah, I mean, like, what
is it? The Leonardo of course, the famous uh you know,
he was one of the the original inventors in at
least in terms of like you know, writing down his
(06:43):
his results and his experimentation and uh, the flying machine.
You know, whether or not it would actually work in
the way he designed it was something that was kind
of indicative of what you're talking about. Then this idea,
the man for generation centuries has been seeking to take flight. Yeah, yeah,
you know, it's it's such a common thing in the
(07:05):
human experience that it's very difficult. It's virtually impossible to
pinpoint the first attempt at human flight. Uh. We have
to first ask ourselves the same question that our our
old school folks at how Stuff Works asked, how do
(07:26):
we define flight? Shout out to our pal Robert Lamb,
who wrote an excellent article for How Stuff Works. You
may recognize Robert as a founder and co host of
Stuff to Blow your Mind. Uh. He will maybe one
day no class up to our our show if we
can get him his writers crazy. I mean, I know
(07:47):
it really is not the brown Eminem's in the whole
nine yards. But you mentioned the idea of like, you know,
how long has it been or what was the first
time that that that man, you know, our human humans,
uh sought to fly? I would argue you could ask
that same question that you do around, like who was
the first person to eat an oyster? You know? Or
who was the first person that ate a mushroom and
achieved the psychedelic state? I bet you real early on
(08:10):
in the in the very early days of humanity, someone
just stepped off a cliff because they didn't know better.
It just seemed like a very an urge, Like you know, what,
what if if I get a good running jump, maybe
I could wildly coyote myself, you know, into the stratosphere
and then there's that moment where the you know, they
float for a second and the ground drops out and
they die. Um, but I bet that happened. And I know,
(08:31):
you know, I think I think we learn that we
cannot fly, but without observable negative results, who knows what
we may have tried. You don't even hear about kids
getting hurt, trying to be Superman, jumping off of roofs
and whatnot. Yeah, that's true. The human brain is an
(08:55):
amazing whereas Fiona Apple would say, an extraordinary machine. You're
absolutely right. Well, like, if you are an early human
being and you see a bird, let's say it's a
big bird, right, uh not sesame street big bird, but
you know, like a like an apex aerial predator, and
(09:16):
you see the way it flies, then you're thinking, oh,
I have things that kind of look like wings, have
got these two limbs closest to my head, and I'm
sad that this is an audio show because I am
flapping my best I'm flapping my arms as well as
I can and I'm still on the ground. So that's
(09:36):
very irritating to early humans. But to your point about
running off a cliff and just giving it ago, uh,
why not? We can't. We have to be careful not
to be dismissive of the stories we're about to talk
about because these folks, we've all died trying to fly.
(09:57):
Each one of them was a pioneer in their day
and in some cases, uh, their their work is part
of the reason that we can hop on commercial airlines today. Like, no, you, uh,
I know, I know you are not adverse to plane flights.
I think you prefer a train if possible. Is that correct? Oh,
(10:20):
only because of the logistics of it. I mean, if
there is a way of taking a train, you lose
so much time and and and it's so stressful, just
like waiting in lion security and just hustling to the airport.
And you know, trains like you're right there in a
city center and then you go. It takes longer than
a flight, but the time you save on the front
and the back end, you know, you're right there in
the city center of like saying New York when you come.
(10:41):
But now, I mean, trains are not obviously, you know,
reasonable or logistically sound for all forms of travel. But man,
isn't nice. It's also just very relaxing, nice scenery. Yeah,
you see parts of the world that you wouldn't normally
see train travel. Travel by rail in the US is
a subject for a future episode. But if you don't
(11:02):
live in the US and you're tuning in, you're probably
rolling your eyes and thinking Americans, you don't know how
real rail transit works. This it is. It is actually
logistically easier to fly in this country than it is
to ride commercial rail. But it's only easier to fly
(11:25):
because of these folks were talking about now knowing that
we cannot figure out the first person who saw a
bird and said, why oh y can't I uh, we
do know one early guy, one early guy from modern
day Kazakhstan. His name is Abu Naser al Jawari. This
(11:50):
is the like the first thousand years common era right
or um a d after the death of Christ, they
would call it. Uh. He was a really smart dude.
He wrote a dictionary, his magnum opus katab Saha Luga.
(12:10):
And he died, as far as we can tell, by
trying to fly. And he was again a very smart man.
You need to know this going in. He died because
he wanted to fly, and he jumped off a roof,
either a mosque or in some accounts, his own home,
(12:33):
and he did it with two wooden wings and some
rope linking the wings, so it's just like flappitty flapping,
flappity flat. I mean, this guy seems like he was
a talented linguist, uh, but maybe he didn't quite grasp
physics in the way that would be necessary for attempting
something like this. For sure, no, no, no other kind
(12:59):
need a lie. But can you imagine though, that moment
when you jump off the roof and then you're just
like the flappity flap flap flow. And again we're gonna
these are some Darwin Awards level goofs here, so we're
gonna laugh. All human life is valuable on all that.
But the image here is cartoonish, as you would say, bad.
(13:20):
It really is like some acme, like he bought peace
from ACME and they just better failure, you know, And
he's just like, yeah, I got this. Wait a minute, nah,
you know, die, I agree with you. I hate the
sound callous, but I picture I picture our pal here
on the top of the structure, whether it's his Homer's mosque,
(13:41):
and someone's going, hey man, this is sort of crazy.
Do you want to you want to just do you
want to just try to like run down a hill
and get up to speed. And he goes. I wrote
a dictionary. Flappitty flap flap flat. Yeah, one one set
of skills does not necessarily equate to the other. Just
and now we have to talk. Well, let's fast forward
(14:02):
a bit. There's a there's another guy who was instrumental
in in an old obsession of ours hot air balloon traveling. Uh.
This guy, Jean Francois checked me on the French here, Noel,
how are we doing, Jean Francois pilatre de Rosier pilt.
(14:25):
I don't know, man, I'm just over there. It's got
a little upside down the little schwa thing over the
a whatever you call that. So I'm thinking that the
a is maybe a yah pil pilatre, that's my guesser.
Al Right, well, what what's what's this guy's deal? Yeah,
he was a balloonist. Um. He invented a type of
(14:46):
balloon around seventy eighty five called the Rosier balloon Um
that named after himself, of course, And he was trying
to do one of those things, you know, those around
the world and eighty days kind of deals, you know,
like be the first to circumnavigate you know, one of those.
But this is specifically Uh, crossing the English Channel via balloon,
(15:07):
and it was he made a noble attempt. This was
no flappity flappity, you know, boobe. It was a little
more you know, thought out than that. Yeah, and he
had he had some stripes for the time. Uh. He
was a man who had made several successful hot air
balloon flights using balloons of different designs. But our boy,
(15:31):
Jean Francois has uh an innovation in his balloon. He's
got something up his envelope for all the balloonist stuff there. Uh.
This guy has this combination of hydrogen and hot air
and that ultimately leads to his undoing. They're going over
the English Channel, like you say, but the wind changes.
(15:54):
It pushes him and his partner back something like five
kilometers over land, and the balloon catches fire and it
deflates and they drop like a rock from about fred
feet of elevation. Uh. It's a sad story because about
(16:15):
eight days later, his former fiance also passes away in
what contemporaneous sources suspect was a a suicide based on heartbreak.
But if you visit if you visit the crash site today,
you can see an obelisk erected in his honor, and
I think it's worth the time if you ever find
(16:36):
yourself in way Moro. Again not a native French speaker,
and I recommended that pronunciation, which is likely incorrect. It
might be wimero. It's in the Pas de calais, so
airship societe. Right, there are are two examples so far.
(16:58):
Sound kind of audacious. Right. We have one person jumping
and flapping as hard as they can with wooden wings
which are also heavier than air. And then we have
another guy who was onto something, but due to the
um ephemeral, capricious nature of the wind, he is led
(17:24):
to an early demise. And I I love the point.
I love the point we made earlier. We can't dismiss
these folks as crackpots. They were doing cutting edge research
and they resulted in their work lad to innovations. This
is where look, you thought I was leaning in on
your on your French. No, I know that, uh, in
(17:46):
our long time ridiculous historians. You also know that once
upon a time, our man Mr Brown was a young
German boy. So I want to give you, I don't
want to give you the honors. We're gonna have some
fun with some jo. We've got to introduce a guy
named Otto Lelandhal, the Flying Man of Germany. Oh boy, yeah, uh,
(18:16):
he's the real deal man. He actually developed the technology
uh if you can call, yeah, of course you can call.
With that behind what is considered the modern wing. He
attempted flights in eight one that are still seen today
as being the very earliest stages of true human flight
of aeronautics. And let's see, this is a fun one. Okay,
(18:40):
I'm gonna give this a track. He I love the
overly long and and and just bespoke German words for
very simple concepts. Uh. One of my favorites is not
a civil concept at all. But there's a German word
referring to collective national guilt over the Holocaust. And then
his heights bivout to go wow, and folks, no did
(19:03):
that from memory? Yeah? Yeah, it's just the one that
I always you know, could people think of far fignugen,
which is just sounds funny. This means just the joy
of travel or driving. Um, but yeah, Bevan and heights
poved to going. It's just like literally means collective guilt
over specifically the Holocaust. But here we go let's see,
um Otto the flying Man invented this thing that he
(19:24):
called the uh Lidenthal normal Zagel apparats normal apparat. Yes,
A just means apparatus and normal means normal. Right, I
think we're onto something. Yes, the little to normal, No,
(19:45):
yours was way more like feisty, fiery, spicy it like
you're angry, right yeah? And so no, what what was this?
What was the normal segal aparat? Well, it is what
is considered to be the first airplane um in series production,
and it resulted in a company that was essentially, you know,
(20:08):
an assembly line style kind of like the closest to
modern uh factory production specs that we was see today.
And the company was called Machine and Fabrique, which just
means like fabrication, you know, of like metal and stuff.
Atto Linenthal the first airplane production company in the entire world.
This guy is killing it, you know, and he changed
(20:30):
the world. Honestly, I he may deserve an episode all
his own, but for our purposes, maybe we simply acknowledge
that he is often not for nothing called their aviation
as well as the father of flight. And we have
to get back to our unfortunate theme. I'm so glad
you mentioned the Darwin Awards. Nol Otto loved gliders. He's
(20:55):
born in Prussia May Even as a kid, he is
studying the flights of local birds. Like he is in
grammar school. Other kids are playing in the you know,
playground or gymnasium or what have you. And uh, he
and his brother aren't playing games with the other kids.
(21:19):
They are watching birds perch on branches, watching them hit
the ground, take off all the things that birds are
famous for. And just like our earliest example, Otto and
his brother again at a young age, they make strap
on wings and they try to fly. Thankfully for history,
(21:43):
they don't jump from uh, such great heights, you know,
they're just they there may be sprayed in some ankles,
but they're not They're not dying. The guy goes on
to become a engineer by trade. He goes to several
different academic institutions, and in eighteen sixty seven he is
(22:09):
a grown guy doing actual science, researching how to how
to better understand air and therefore aviation. But he has
to go serve in the Franco Prussian War. He goes
back from the war, he survives, he's an engineer. Still,
(22:30):
he gets a patent. But this surprised me. It's not
a patent for uh, it's not a patent for anything
related to aviation. It's for a mining machine. And he
makes these things called tubular boilers. He makes boilers and
steam engines. He could have stopped there. He was a success, right,
he could have just been like a mining magnate for sure.
(22:53):
I love that you have tubular boilers. It makes me
think of tubular belts from from the but not that
something different. But no, this guy man, he's like, he's
really on a roll, and some serious achievements havevier than
their flight ding ding ding. He apparently built a man
made hill. What's that about, right, Yeah, yeah, he's he's
(23:15):
thinking these hills are okay, but I need a specific
take off point. I need this gentle elevation of a
very particular sort. And that's kind of cool, building your
own hill to carry out your glider experiments after you
have already become a famous mining inventor. He also creates
(23:39):
an important patent. We know this because outside of the
invention seperc act, which is a real thing. Tune into
stuff they don't want you to know. Outside of that
insidious little law, the u s patent of records are
public and so this is how we know that Auto
has create did this bar to carry and fly a
(24:03):
hang glider. And for just a few years in the
eighteen nineties, our man Atto is that glider king. He
makes thousands, literally thousands of flights in gliders that he
is designed. He does this in with his first glider version,
the Dead viitsor glider uh, and he continues this. He's
(24:25):
on a roll until his death in eight but he
is for that brief period of time, for those five
halcyon years, he is world famous. People are taking photos
of his gliders, photos of his flights, Scientists are writing
about it. Right the popular publications of the day are
(24:48):
showing these pictures. You can see a lot of this
at the Leylandal Museum over in Germany. But alas those
who fly first seem too often fall first as well.
So no, I think it's I think it's time we
talked about his last slide. Yeah, I mean, you know,
(25:10):
if you're gonna, if you're if you if you're this
kind of this kind of cat, you can think of
worse ways to go out. So in August nine, a
day after my birthday, in well before I was born. Um.
A little over a hundred and twenty six years ago,
Otto went to his usual weekend spot at the Rhino Hills.
Perfect weather for a flight, great day for a flight, sunny,
(25:32):
not too hot, around sixty eight degrees. Things go well.
At first. He was able to reach a distance around
eight hundred and twenty feet UH in his normal glider,
but then things changed Um during his fourth flight. Yeah,
if you have ever if you have ever made a
paper airplane, you're awesome. If you have not made a
(25:57):
paper airplane, you have some adventures. There are a lot
of fun and they'll teach you about gliding and narrow dynamics.
This guy is an expert. But like you said, no
and steering his fourth flight, when his vehicle pitches forward,
the glider nose dives, and if you've seen a paper
plane nose dive before, you know what we're talking about.
(26:19):
This is bad news for him, and he knows this.
Without getting into the weeds of physics here, this kind
of glider relies on shifting one's weight, and when you're
heading straight down, when you're plummeting, it's very difficult to
make that weight shift successfully. So it's like it's like
(26:41):
if you're trying to steer out of a swerve in
a car, and he's trying to essentially steer out of
the swerve, he can't regain control. He falls from the air.
About yeah, and unfortunately it wasn't a super quick death. Um.
One of his associates, a guy named Paul Bailey, who
was his mechanic, was on the scene. He ran to
(27:03):
his side and and then raised him to a doctor
in the city of Stone. This was in the olden days.
Even though this guy is making serious leaps and bounds
in terms of flight, we are still living in the
days of horse drawn carriages. So uh, the rough ride
that that would have entailed probably didn't help the dude
already being super banged up. This one isn't a funny one.
(27:26):
This one is like truly kind of a bummer. And
this guy really, you know, he was important. He really
made some serious, uh you know, advancements in the field,
and he was kind of a freak accident. Like he
he wasn't being a wing nut, you know, he really
just kind of the conditions sort of got the better
of him. He sustained some pretty serious injuries that he
(27:46):
was just not going to recover from, including a fractured
third cervical vertebrae. Um. He actually lost consciousness and was
moved via a cargo train to Berlin. Uh and then
take and the next morning to a doctor by the
name of Ernst von Bergmann Um who was a very
very very famous and sought after surgeon. Because again this
(28:08):
guy was a big deal, like they were going to
give him the best treatment possible, but unfortunately did pass
away a few hours later. Um, about thirty six hours
after the crash. Um, you know it was. It was
it would be the last flight for for Germany's flying man. Yeah.
And interesting side note, his last words are a matter
(28:30):
of debate for historians today. Off, Mike uh Noel, you
and I have talked at length about how how accurate
reports of people's last words are, because I think we're
both of the mind that most people's last words or
something like death rattle. Yeah yeah, I mean, you know,
(28:53):
it's like we'd all like to think that we were
gonna say some momentous poetic thing on our deathbed, but
chances are our wits are not going to be fully
about us, you know, under these types of circumstances. So
I'm with you, Ben, I'm always a little bit skeptical.
It makes for a good story, I do. Yeah, one
(29:16):
for the Kipper. What's the other one? That was a movie?
That was a movie, but it's it's a it's a
great example of you know, schmaltzy kind of like last word,
material death is not fun or romantic or poetic. Most
of this because both of us contest. Yeah. Also that
was Oscar Wilde who reputedly said, either the wallpaper goes
(29:39):
or I do, And then Ja ga Vera apparently said, shoot, fool,
you will only killing a man. But what what is
the purported final statement of the Flying Man of Germany?
What was he saying, well, we'll give you the German
and then and then the translation reportedly he said, up
(30:01):
fa mussen gebracht vadden, which which basically translates to sacrifices
must be made, which is you know, kind of a
theme of this episode in terms of the advancement of humanity.
You gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet,
and all that you gotta crack a few skulls to
to make humans fly. There we are, uh now, of course,
(30:24):
the staff of the Auto leland Thal museum will tell
you this is likely an historical invention, but still it's
an epic declaration. And here we are going to pause folks,
just like France on the first deck of the Eiffel Tower.
This is the end of part one of our two
part series on people who died trying to fly. Thanks
(30:46):
as always to our super producer, Mr Max Williams. Indeed
thanks to Alice Williams who can post this theme. Christopher
Stiotis eaves, Jeff co At both here in spirit, Christopher
soon to be here in in the flesh. We promised
for ages. Yeah, but I definitely button holed him over
(31:06):
in Dallas, and I think you did too. We sat
down with him in person and said you gotta come
back him a good button only. Let's see you next steps.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
(31:28):
your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
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Noel Brown
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