Latest / Ridiculous History / Inventors Killed By Their Own Inventions: Flyin' or Dyin', Part One

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Inventors Killed By Their Own Inventions: Flyin' or Dyin', Part One · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
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Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
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Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Let's give it up for
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Speaker 1: the man, the myth legend, our own mad genius super producer,
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Speaker 1: Mr Max Williams, and they call me Ben. I would
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Speaker 1: like to introduce one of my personal favorite mad geniuses,
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Speaker 1: the one and only Mr Noel Brown, who me yes you,
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Speaker 1: thanks buddy. You're you're mad. You're a bit of a
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Speaker 1: bit of a mad genius. You're so sort of mad scientist,
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Speaker 1: a nutty professor of of of of fiction and fact.
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Speaker 1: You uh and you served as our exclusive research associate
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Speaker 1: on today's episode, which is I think at the makings
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Speaker 1: of maybe one of those series that we promised to
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Speaker 1: make a series and then only ever do one or two. Instead,
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Speaker 1: we swear this one has legs leg no suf John Stevens,
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Speaker 1: We're actually gonna do it. I'm gonna say this right now.
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Speaker 1: I am on this case. I have a whole tab
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Speaker 1: in the document dedicated to these Now will we ever
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Speaker 1: look at the tab that that's up to debate? But
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Speaker 1: I have a tab cal there is the Episodes in
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Speaker 1: Perpetuity folks peep behind the ridiculous curtain. Uh. Some time ago,
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Speaker 1: the three of us, who are actual friends in real life,
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Speaker 1: the three of us became enamored with, uh, this idea
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Speaker 1: of inventors who died as a result of their inventions. Now,
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Speaker 1: this is tragic. There is human life lost in every
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Speaker 1: single case. But there's something I don't know, There's something
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Speaker 1: oddly inspiring about it, Like the the ability to invent,
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Speaker 1: to take something from your imagination and create some version
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Speaker 1: of it in the physical world. It's an almost but
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Speaker 1: not entirely human skill. It doesn't always go as planned,
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Speaker 1: and uh speaking, things not always going as planned. I
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Speaker 1: think we thought this would be at first. I don't
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Speaker 1: know about you guys, but at first I thought this
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Speaker 1: would be one and done episode or maybe a two parter.
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Speaker 1: But as we were, as we were diving into the research,
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Speaker 1: we realized a lot of people have died as a
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Speaker 1: direct result of their own and chips you gotta laugh
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Speaker 1: at so yeah, I mean, you gotta give them credit
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Speaker 1: for putting their money where their mouth is, right. I mean,
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Speaker 1: you can only test things with like dummies or lab
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Speaker 1: raths or whatever for so long. It's also it's also
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Speaker 1: kind of a trope in like comic books, you know,
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Speaker 1: like Bruce Banner kind of gammar ate himself into the
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Speaker 1: Hulk or whatever. Mobius first name was shot himself up
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Speaker 1: with magic bat juice, you know, to cure his disability,
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Speaker 1: but also you know, transformed him into a bloodsucking creature
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Speaker 1: of the night with bad c g I fangs who
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Speaker 1: fought against a doctor who. Uh that that's a it's
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Speaker 1: a bad movie. Just just but you know it happens
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Speaker 1: in real life too. It happens in real life too. Again.
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Speaker 1: You know, the real scientists have tragically had their lives
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Speaker 1: cut short in the search of greatness and sometimes you know,
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Speaker 1: the achievement of greatness, but often sometimes do that is
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Speaker 1: where their story ends until today. I love what a
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Speaker 1: wonderful setup. Yeah, today we are uh, we are asking
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Speaker 1: you to travel with us ridiculous historians through a cavalcade
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Speaker 1: of catastrophes, a listical of tragic ridicule. Uh. It's oddly
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Speaker 1: inspiring perhaps, and we promise we're not going to end
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Speaker 1: on a downer. Note these stories are peak ridiculous history. Uh.
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Speaker 1: This first iteration of what may or may not to
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Speaker 1: your point, and it will be a continuing series. Uh,
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Speaker 1: this first iteration focuses on people who died trying to fly,
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Speaker 1: And there's a lot of like Far Side Gary Larson
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Speaker 1: stuff about this. I know we're all big fans of
4:45
Speaker 1: Far Side, and if you have not somehow heard of
4:49
Speaker 1: Far Side, you should. If you enjoy laughter. If you
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Speaker 1: don't enjoy laughter, that's fine, go, you know, go back
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Speaker 1: to the goth albums. But Far Side. Also, why do
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Speaker 1: we choose flight first? Well, human beings have always been
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Speaker 1: captivated by flight by heights. You know, human skin swim,
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Speaker 1: not as well as fish or orca or dolphins, but
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Speaker 1: you know humans can swim, right, Uh, who's that guy
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Speaker 1: who swims? Really? Well, what's his name? Michael Felts aquaman? Second,
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Speaker 1: I'm stick in a comic book, not name or or
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Speaker 1: nail or whatever the guy's name. The other the knockoff
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Speaker 1: version of the King of Atlantis is a mutant and
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Speaker 1: not not humans. Still alright, nerd whatever? Still? Still? You
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Speaker 1: know human beings can run, not as swiftly as a
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Speaker 1: cheetah or an antelope. Actually, early humans use their ability
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Speaker 1: to run far distances rather than sprinting. Humans are persistent hunts,
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Speaker 1: you know, old school originally before grocery stores, but right now,
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Speaker 1: as we record from ancient history all the way too,
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Speaker 1: there is no human being that can fly without the
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Speaker 1: aid of technology. And come on, folks, if you're listening
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Speaker 1: to this and you're a human as well, you know
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Speaker 1: how people are not being able to fly watching all
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Speaker 1: those birds and insects flitter about. That bugged us, That
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Speaker 1: bugged us immensely. And today's Yeah, I mean, like, what
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Speaker 1: is it? The Leonardo of course, the famous uh you know,
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Speaker 1: he was one of the the original inventors in at
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Speaker 1: least in terms of like you know, writing down his
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Speaker 1: his results and his experimentation and uh, the flying machine.
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Speaker 1: You know, whether or not it would actually work in
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Speaker 1: the way he designed it was something that was kind
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Speaker 1: of indicative of what you're talking about. Then this idea,
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Speaker 1: the man for generation centuries has been seeking to take flight. Yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: you know, it's it's such a common thing in the
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Speaker 1: human experience that it's very difficult. It's virtually impossible to
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Speaker 1: pinpoint the first attempt at human flight. Uh. We have
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Speaker 1: to first ask ourselves the same question that our our
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Speaker 1: old school folks at how Stuff Works asked, how do
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Speaker 1: we define flight? Shout out to our pal Robert Lamb,
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Speaker 1: who wrote an excellent article for How Stuff Works. You
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Speaker 1: may recognize Robert as a founder and co host of
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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind. Uh. He will maybe one
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Speaker 1: day no class up to our our show if we
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Speaker 1: can get him his writers crazy. I mean, I know
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Speaker 1: it really is not the brown Eminem's in the whole
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Speaker 1: nine yards. But you mentioned the idea of like, you know,
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Speaker 1: how long has it been or what was the first
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Speaker 1: time that that that man, you know, our human humans,
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Speaker 1: uh sought to fly? I would argue you could ask
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Speaker 1: that same question that you do around, like who was
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Speaker 1: the first person to eat an oyster? You know? Or
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Speaker 1: who was the first person that ate a mushroom and
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Speaker 1: achieved the psychedelic state? I bet you real early on
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Speaker 1: in the in the very early days of humanity, someone
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Speaker 1: just stepped off a cliff because they didn't know better.
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Speaker 1: It just seemed like a very an urge, Like you know, what,
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Speaker 1: what if if I get a good running jump, maybe
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Speaker 1: I could wildly coyote myself, you know, into the stratosphere
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Speaker 1: and then there's that moment where the you know, they
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Speaker 1: float for a second and the ground drops out and
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Speaker 1: they die. Um, but I bet that happened. And I know,
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Speaker 1: you know, I think I think we learn that we
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Speaker 1: cannot fly, but without observable negative results, who knows what
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Speaker 1: we may have tried. You don't even hear about kids
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Speaker 1: getting hurt, trying to be Superman, jumping off of roofs
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Speaker 1: and whatnot. Yeah, that's true. The human brain is an
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Speaker 1: amazing whereas Fiona Apple would say, an extraordinary machine. You're
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Speaker 1: absolutely right. Well, like, if you are an early human
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Speaker 1: being and you see a bird, let's say it's a
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Speaker 1: big bird, right, uh not sesame street big bird, but
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Speaker 1: you know, like a like an apex aerial predator, and
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Speaker 1: you see the way it flies, then you're thinking, oh,
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Speaker 1: I have things that kind of look like wings, have
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Speaker 1: got these two limbs closest to my head, and I'm
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Speaker 1: sad that this is an audio show because I am
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Speaker 1: flapping my best I'm flapping my arms as well as
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Speaker 1: I can and I'm still on the ground. So that's
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Speaker 1: very irritating to early humans. But to your point about
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Speaker 1: running off a cliff and just giving it ago, uh,
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Speaker 1: why not? We can't. We have to be careful not
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Speaker 1: to be dismissive of the stories we're about to talk
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Speaker 1: about because these folks, we've all died trying to fly.
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Speaker 1: Each one of them was a pioneer in their day
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Speaker 1: and in some cases, uh, their their work is part
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Speaker 1: of the reason that we can hop on commercial airlines today. Like, no, you, uh,
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Speaker 1: I know, I know you are not adverse to plane flights.
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Speaker 1: I think you prefer a train if possible. Is that correct? Oh,
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Speaker 1: only because of the logistics of it. I mean, if
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Speaker 1: there is a way of taking a train, you lose
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Speaker 1: so much time and and and it's so stressful, just
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Speaker 1: like waiting in lion security and just hustling to the airport.
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Speaker 1: And you know, trains like you're right there in a
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Speaker 1: city center and then you go. It takes longer than
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Speaker 1: a flight, but the time you save on the front
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Speaker 1: and the back end, you know, you're right there in
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Speaker 1: the city center of like saying New York when you come.
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Speaker 1: But now, I mean, trains are not obviously, you know,
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Speaker 1: reasonable or logistically sound for all forms of travel. But man,
10:47
Speaker 1: isn't nice. It's also just very relaxing, nice scenery. Yeah,
10:51
Speaker 1: you see parts of the world that you wouldn't normally
10:54
Speaker 1: see train travel. Travel by rail in the US is
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Speaker 1: a subject for a future episode. But if you don't
11:02
Speaker 1: live in the US and you're tuning in, you're probably
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Speaker 1: rolling your eyes and thinking Americans, you don't know how
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Speaker 1: real rail transit works. This it is. It is actually
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Speaker 1: logistically easier to fly in this country than it is
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Speaker 1: to ride commercial rail. But it's only easier to fly
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Speaker 1: because of these folks were talking about now knowing that
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Speaker 1: we cannot figure out the first person who saw a
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Speaker 1: bird and said, why oh y can't I uh, we
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Speaker 1: do know one early guy, one early guy from modern
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Speaker 1: day Kazakhstan. His name is Abu Naser al Jawari. This
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Speaker 1: is the like the first thousand years common era right
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Speaker 1: or um a d after the death of Christ, they
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Speaker 1: would call it. Uh. He was a really smart dude.
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Speaker 1: He wrote a dictionary, his magnum opus katab Saha Luga.
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Speaker 1: And he died, as far as we can tell, by
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Speaker 1: trying to fly. And he was again a very smart man.
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Speaker 1: You need to know this going in. He died because
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Speaker 1: he wanted to fly, and he jumped off a roof,
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Speaker 1: either a mosque or in some accounts, his own home,
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Speaker 1: and he did it with two wooden wings and some
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Speaker 1: rope linking the wings, so it's just like flappitty flapping,
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Speaker 1: flappity flat. I mean, this guy seems like he was
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Speaker 1: a talented linguist, uh, but maybe he didn't quite grasp
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Speaker 1: physics in the way that would be necessary for attempting
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Speaker 1: something like this. For sure, no, no, no other kind
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Speaker 1: need a lie. But can you imagine though, that moment
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Speaker 1: when you jump off the roof and then you're just
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Speaker 1: like the flappity flap flap flow. And again we're gonna
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Speaker 1: these are some Darwin Awards level goofs here, so we're
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Speaker 1: gonna laugh. All human life is valuable on all that.
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Speaker 1: But the image here is cartoonish, as you would say, bad.
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Speaker 1: It really is like some acme, like he bought peace
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Speaker 1: from ACME and they just better failure, you know, And
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Speaker 1: he's just like, yeah, I got this. Wait a minute, nah,
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Speaker 1: you know, die, I agree with you. I hate the
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Speaker 1: sound callous, but I picture I picture our pal here
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Speaker 1: on the top of the structure, whether it's his Homer's mosque,
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Speaker 1: and someone's going, hey man, this is sort of crazy.
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Speaker 1: Do you want to you want to just do you
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Speaker 1: want to just try to like run down a hill
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Speaker 1: and get up to speed. And he goes. I wrote
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Speaker 1: a dictionary. Flappitty flap flap flat. Yeah, one one set
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Speaker 1: of skills does not necessarily equate to the other. Just
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Speaker 1: and now we have to talk. Well, let's fast forward
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Speaker 1: a bit. There's a there's another guy who was instrumental
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Speaker 1: in in an old obsession of ours hot air balloon traveling. Uh.
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Speaker 1: This guy, Jean Francois checked me on the French here, Noel,
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Speaker 1: how are we doing, Jean Francois pilatre de Rosier pilt.
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Speaker 1: I don't know, man, I'm just over there. It's got
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Speaker 1: a little upside down the little schwa thing over the
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Speaker 1: a whatever you call that. So I'm thinking that the
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Speaker 1: a is maybe a yah pil pilatre, that's my guesser.
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Speaker 1: Al Right, well, what what's what's this guy's deal? Yeah,
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Speaker 1: he was a balloonist. Um. He invented a type of
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Speaker 1: balloon around seventy eighty five called the Rosier balloon Um
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Speaker 1: that named after himself, of course, And he was trying
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Speaker 1: to do one of those things, you know, those around
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Speaker 1: the world and eighty days kind of deals, you know,
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Speaker 1: like be the first to circumnavigate you know, one of those.
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Speaker 1: But this is specifically Uh, crossing the English Channel via balloon,
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Speaker 1: and it was he made a noble attempt. This was
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Speaker 1: no flappity flappity, you know, boobe. It was a little
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Speaker 1: more you know, thought out than that. Yeah, and he
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Speaker 1: had he had some stripes for the time. Uh. He
15:21
Speaker 1: was a man who had made several successful hot air
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Speaker 1: balloon flights using balloons of different designs. But our boy,
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Speaker 1: Jean Francois has uh an innovation in his balloon. He's
15:36
Speaker 1: got something up his envelope for all the balloonist stuff there. Uh.
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Speaker 1: This guy has this combination of hydrogen and hot air
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Speaker 1: and that ultimately leads to his undoing. They're going over
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Speaker 1: the English Channel, like you say, but the wind changes.
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Speaker 1: It pushes him and his partner back something like five
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Speaker 1: kilometers over land, and the balloon catches fire and it
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Speaker 1: deflates and they drop like a rock from about fred
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Speaker 1: feet of elevation. Uh. It's a sad story because about
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Speaker 1: eight days later, his former fiance also passes away in
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Speaker 1: what contemporaneous sources suspect was a a suicide based on heartbreak.
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Speaker 1: But if you visit if you visit the crash site today,
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Speaker 1: you can see an obelisk erected in his honor, and
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Speaker 1: I think it's worth the time if you ever find
16:36
Speaker 1: yourself in way Moro. Again not a native French speaker,
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Speaker 1: and I recommended that pronunciation, which is likely incorrect. It
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Speaker 1: might be wimero. It's in the Pas de calais, so
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Speaker 1: airship societe. Right, there are are two examples so far.
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Speaker 1: Sound kind of audacious. Right. We have one person jumping
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Speaker 1: and flapping as hard as they can with wooden wings
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Speaker 1: which are also heavier than air. And then we have
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Speaker 1: another guy who was onto something, but due to the
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Speaker 1: um ephemeral, capricious nature of the wind, he is led
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Speaker 1: to an early demise. And I I love the point.
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Speaker 1: I love the point we made earlier. We can't dismiss
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Speaker 1: these folks as crackpots. They were doing cutting edge research
17:34
Speaker 1: and they resulted in their work lad to innovations. This
17:40
Speaker 1: is where look, you thought I was leaning in on
17:43
Speaker 1: your on your French. No, I know that, uh, in
17:46
Speaker 1: our long time ridiculous historians. You also know that once
17:49
Speaker 1: upon a time, our man Mr Brown was a young
17:54
Speaker 1: German boy. So I want to give you, I don't
17:57
Speaker 1: want to give you the honors. We're gonna have some
17:59
Speaker 1: fun with some jo. We've got to introduce a guy
18:02
Speaker 1: named Otto Lelandhal, the Flying Man of Germany. Oh boy, yeah, uh,
18:16
Speaker 1: he's the real deal man. He actually developed the technology
18:20
Speaker 1: uh if you can call, yeah, of course you can call.
18:22
Speaker 1: With that behind what is considered the modern wing. He
18:26
Speaker 1: attempted flights in eight one that are still seen today
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Speaker 1: as being the very earliest stages of true human flight
18:35
Speaker 1: of aeronautics. And let's see, this is a fun one. Okay,
18:40
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give this a track. He I love the
18:43
Speaker 1: overly long and and and just bespoke German words for
18:48
Speaker 1: very simple concepts. Uh. One of my favorites is not
18:50
Speaker 1: a civil concept at all. But there's a German word
18:53
Speaker 1: referring to collective national guilt over the Holocaust. And then
18:57
Speaker 1: his heights bivout to go wow, and folks, no did
19:03
Speaker 1: that from memory? Yeah? Yeah, it's just the one that
19:05
Speaker 1: I always you know, could people think of far fignugen,
19:07
Speaker 1: which is just sounds funny. This means just the joy
19:10
Speaker 1: of travel or driving. Um, but yeah, Bevan and heights
19:13
Speaker 1: poved to going. It's just like literally means collective guilt
19:16
Speaker 1: over specifically the Holocaust. But here we go let's see,
19:20
Speaker 1: um Otto the flying Man invented this thing that he
19:24
Speaker 1: called the uh Lidenthal normal Zagel apparats normal apparat. Yes,
19:33
Speaker 1: A just means apparatus and normal means normal. Right, I
19:38
Speaker 1: think we're onto something. Yes, the little to normal, No,
19:45
Speaker 1: yours was way more like feisty, fiery, spicy it like
19:49
Speaker 1: you're angry, right yeah? And so no, what what was this?
19:55
Speaker 1: What was the normal segal aparat? Well, it is what
19:59
Speaker 1: is considered to be the first airplane um in series production,
20:04
Speaker 1: and it resulted in a company that was essentially, you know,
20:08
Speaker 1: an assembly line style kind of like the closest to
20:11
Speaker 1: modern uh factory production specs that we was see today.
20:15
Speaker 1: And the company was called Machine and Fabrique, which just
20:18
Speaker 1: means like fabrication, you know, of like metal and stuff.
20:20
Speaker 1: Atto Linenthal the first airplane production company in the entire world.
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Speaker 1: This guy is killing it, you know, and he changed
20:30
Speaker 1: the world. Honestly, I he may deserve an episode all
20:34
Speaker 1: his own, but for our purposes, maybe we simply acknowledge
20:38
Speaker 1: that he is often not for nothing called their aviation
20:42
Speaker 1: as well as the father of flight. And we have
20:46
Speaker 1: to get back to our unfortunate theme. I'm so glad
20:49
Speaker 1: you mentioned the Darwin Awards. Nol Otto loved gliders. He's
20:55
Speaker 1: born in Prussia May Even as a kid, he is
21:02
Speaker 1: studying the flights of local birds. Like he is in
21:05
Speaker 1: grammar school. Other kids are playing in the you know,
21:10
Speaker 1: playground or gymnasium or what have you. And uh, he
21:14
Speaker 1: and his brother aren't playing games with the other kids.
21:19
Speaker 1: They are watching birds perch on branches, watching them hit
21:24
Speaker 1: the ground, take off all the things that birds are
21:27
Speaker 1: famous for. And just like our earliest example, Otto and
21:33
Speaker 1: his brother again at a young age, they make strap
21:37
Speaker 1: on wings and they try to fly. Thankfully for history,
21:43
Speaker 1: they don't jump from uh, such great heights, you know,
21:47
Speaker 1: they're just they there may be sprayed in some ankles,
21:52
Speaker 1: but they're not They're not dying. The guy goes on
21:55
Speaker 1: to become a engineer by trade. He goes to several
22:02
Speaker 1: different academic institutions, and in eighteen sixty seven he is
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Speaker 1: a grown guy doing actual science, researching how to how
22:16
Speaker 1: to better understand air and therefore aviation. But he has
22:22
Speaker 1: to go serve in the Franco Prussian War. He goes
22:26
Speaker 1: back from the war, he survives, he's an engineer. Still,
22:30
Speaker 1: he gets a patent. But this surprised me. It's not
22:33
Speaker 1: a patent for uh, it's not a patent for anything
22:36
Speaker 1: related to aviation. It's for a mining machine. And he
22:40
Speaker 1: makes these things called tubular boilers. He makes boilers and
22:45
Speaker 1: steam engines. He could have stopped there. He was a success, right,
22:49
Speaker 1: he could have just been like a mining magnate for sure.
22:53
Speaker 1: I love that you have tubular boilers. It makes me
22:55
Speaker 1: think of tubular belts from from the but not that
23:00
Speaker 1: something different. But no, this guy man, he's like, he's
23:02
Speaker 1: really on a roll, and some serious achievements havevier than
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Speaker 1: their flight ding ding ding. He apparently built a man
23:09
Speaker 1: made hill. What's that about, right, Yeah, yeah, he's he's
23:15
Speaker 1: thinking these hills are okay, but I need a specific
23:20
Speaker 1: take off point. I need this gentle elevation of a
23:26
Speaker 1: very particular sort. And that's kind of cool, building your
23:30
Speaker 1: own hill to carry out your glider experiments after you
23:33
Speaker 1: have already become a famous mining inventor. He also creates
23:39
Speaker 1: an important patent. We know this because outside of the
23:43
Speaker 1: invention seperc act, which is a real thing. Tune into
23:46
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know. Outside of that
23:49
Speaker 1: insidious little law, the u s patent of records are
23:54
Speaker 1: public and so this is how we know that Auto
23:57
Speaker 1: has create did this bar to carry and fly a
24:03
Speaker 1: hang glider. And for just a few years in the
24:06
Speaker 1: eighteen nineties, our man Atto is that glider king. He
24:10
Speaker 1: makes thousands, literally thousands of flights in gliders that he
24:15
Speaker 1: is designed. He does this in with his first glider version,
24:21
Speaker 1: the Dead viitsor glider uh, and he continues this. He's
24:25
Speaker 1: on a roll until his death in eight but he
24:30
Speaker 1: is for that brief period of time, for those five
24:33
Speaker 1: halcyon years, he is world famous. People are taking photos
24:38
Speaker 1: of his gliders, photos of his flights, Scientists are writing
24:43
Speaker 1: about it. Right the popular publications of the day are
24:48
Speaker 1: showing these pictures. You can see a lot of this
24:51
Speaker 1: at the Leylandal Museum over in Germany. But alas those
24:57
Speaker 1: who fly first seem too often fall first as well.
25:02
Speaker 1: So no, I think it's I think it's time we
25:07
Speaker 1: talked about his last slide. Yeah, I mean, you know,
25:10
Speaker 1: if you're gonna, if you're if you if you're this
25:11
Speaker 1: kind of this kind of cat, you can think of
25:13
Speaker 1: worse ways to go out. So in August nine, a
25:16
Speaker 1: day after my birthday, in well before I was born. Um.
25:20
Speaker 1: A little over a hundred and twenty six years ago,
25:22
Speaker 1: Otto went to his usual weekend spot at the Rhino Hills.
25:28
Speaker 1: Perfect weather for a flight, great day for a flight, sunny,
25:32
Speaker 1: not too hot, around sixty eight degrees. Things go well.
25:36
Speaker 1: At first. He was able to reach a distance around
25:39
Speaker 1: eight hundred and twenty feet UH in his normal glider,
25:43
Speaker 1: but then things changed Um during his fourth flight. Yeah,
25:49
Speaker 1: if you have ever if you have ever made a
25:52
Speaker 1: paper airplane, you're awesome. If you have not made a
25:57
Speaker 1: paper airplane, you have some adventures. There are a lot
26:00
Speaker 1: of fun and they'll teach you about gliding and narrow dynamics.
26:04
Speaker 1: This guy is an expert. But like you said, no
26:08
Speaker 1: and steering his fourth flight, when his vehicle pitches forward,
26:13
Speaker 1: the glider nose dives, and if you've seen a paper
26:17
Speaker 1: plane nose dive before, you know what we're talking about.
26:19
Speaker 1: This is bad news for him, and he knows this.
26:22
Speaker 1: Without getting into the weeds of physics here, this kind
26:26
Speaker 1: of glider relies on shifting one's weight, and when you're
26:31
Speaker 1: heading straight down, when you're plummeting, it's very difficult to
26:36
Speaker 1: make that weight shift successfully. So it's like it's like
26:41
Speaker 1: if you're trying to steer out of a swerve in
26:43
Speaker 1: a car, and he's trying to essentially steer out of
26:46
Speaker 1: the swerve, he can't regain control. He falls from the air.
26:51
Speaker 1: About yeah, and unfortunately it wasn't a super quick death. Um.
26:57
Speaker 1: One of his associates, a guy named Paul Bailey, who
27:00
Speaker 1: was his mechanic, was on the scene. He ran to
27:03
Speaker 1: his side and and then raised him to a doctor
27:07
Speaker 1: in the city of Stone. This was in the olden days.
27:10
Speaker 1: Even though this guy is making serious leaps and bounds
27:12
Speaker 1: in terms of flight, we are still living in the
27:15
Speaker 1: days of horse drawn carriages. So uh, the rough ride
27:19
Speaker 1: that that would have entailed probably didn't help the dude
27:23
Speaker 1: already being super banged up. This one isn't a funny one.
27:26
Speaker 1: This one is like truly kind of a bummer. And
27:28
Speaker 1: this guy really, you know, he was important. He really
27:30
Speaker 1: made some serious, uh you know, advancements in the field,
27:34
Speaker 1: and he was kind of a freak accident. Like he
27:37
Speaker 1: he wasn't being a wing nut, you know, he really
27:40
Speaker 1: just kind of the conditions sort of got the better
27:42
Speaker 1: of him. He sustained some pretty serious injuries that he
27:46
Speaker 1: was just not going to recover from, including a fractured
27:49
Speaker 1: third cervical vertebrae. Um. He actually lost consciousness and was
27:55
Speaker 1: moved via a cargo train to Berlin. Uh and then
27:59
Speaker 1: take and the next morning to a doctor by the
28:02
Speaker 1: name of Ernst von Bergmann Um who was a very
28:05
Speaker 1: very very famous and sought after surgeon. Because again this
28:08
Speaker 1: guy was a big deal, like they were going to
28:09
Speaker 1: give him the best treatment possible, but unfortunately did pass
28:13
Speaker 1: away a few hours later. Um, about thirty six hours
28:16
Speaker 1: after the crash. Um, you know it was. It was
28:20
Speaker 1: it would be the last flight for for Germany's flying man. Yeah.
28:25
Speaker 1: And interesting side note, his last words are a matter
28:30
Speaker 1: of debate for historians today. Off, Mike uh Noel, you
28:34
Speaker 1: and I have talked at length about how how accurate
28:40
Speaker 1: reports of people's last words are, because I think we're
28:45
Speaker 1: both of the mind that most people's last words or
28:48
Speaker 1: something like death rattle. Yeah yeah, I mean, you know,
28:53
Speaker 1: it's like we'd all like to think that we were
28:56
Speaker 1: gonna say some momentous poetic thing on our deathbed, but
29:02
Speaker 1: chances are our wits are not going to be fully
29:05
Speaker 1: about us, you know, under these types of circumstances. So
29:08
Speaker 1: I'm with you, Ben, I'm always a little bit skeptical.
29:10
Speaker 1: It makes for a good story, I do. Yeah, one
29:16
Speaker 1: for the Kipper. What's the other one? That was a movie?
29:19
Speaker 1: That was a movie, but it's it's a it's a
29:20
Speaker 1: great example of you know, schmaltzy kind of like last word,
29:25
Speaker 1: material death is not fun or romantic or poetic. Most
29:30
Speaker 1: of this because both of us contest. Yeah. Also that
29:35
Speaker 1: was Oscar Wilde who reputedly said, either the wallpaper goes
29:39
Speaker 1: or I do, And then Ja ga Vera apparently said, shoot, fool,
29:44
Speaker 1: you will only killing a man. But what what is
29:48
Speaker 1: the purported final statement of the Flying Man of Germany?
29:53
Speaker 1: What was he saying, well, we'll give you the German
29:56
Speaker 1: and then and then the translation reportedly he said, up
30:01
Speaker 1: fa mussen gebracht vadden, which which basically translates to sacrifices
30:08
Speaker 1: must be made, which is you know, kind of a
30:10
Speaker 1: theme of this episode in terms of the advancement of humanity.
30:15
Speaker 1: You gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet,
30:17
Speaker 1: and all that you gotta crack a few skulls to
30:20
Speaker 1: to make humans fly. There we are, uh now, of course,
30:24
Speaker 1: the staff of the Auto leland Thal museum will tell
30:27
Speaker 1: you this is likely an historical invention, but still it's
30:31
Speaker 1: an epic declaration. And here we are going to pause folks,
30:35
Speaker 1: just like France on the first deck of the Eiffel Tower.
30:38
Speaker 1: This is the end of part one of our two
30:41
Speaker 1: part series on people who died trying to fly. Thanks
30:46
Speaker 1: as always to our super producer, Mr Max Williams. Indeed
30:51
Speaker 1: thanks to Alice Williams who can post this theme. Christopher
30:54
Speaker 1: Stiotis eaves, Jeff co At both here in spirit, Christopher
30:57
Speaker 1: soon to be here in in the flesh. We promised
31:02
Speaker 1: for ages. Yeah, but I definitely button holed him over
31:06
Speaker 1: in Dallas, and I think you did too. We sat
31:09
Speaker 1: down with him in person and said you gotta come
31:13
Speaker 1: back him a good button only. Let's see you next steps.
31:23
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
31:25
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
31:28
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.