LIST OF 15 INVENTORS THAT DIED FROM THE THINGS THEY INVENTED
1. Thomas Midgley Jr
Thomas Midgley Jr. was a highly decorated chemist best known for his work with “no-knock” or leaded
gasoline and the greenhouse gas Freon. Though, Freon suffered from lead poisoning as he once poured leaded gasoline all over his hands and sniffed from a flask of it for 60 seconds during a press conference to prove the fuel was safe, but actually from one of his inventions — the rope and pulley system he built to support his body while he was in bed suffering from polio. He became entangled in the ropes on Nov. 2, 1944, suffocated and eventually give up.
2. James Douglas
James Douglas lived from 1525 to 1581. He was one of Scotland’s last regents during the reign of King James VI. Douglas brought an execution machine called the Maiden to Scotland from England. The Maiden to the Guillotine. The Maiden was preferred for execution over the sword because they believed is more humane method of execution. In 1580, Captain James Stuart accused Douglas of participating in the murder of Lord Darnley in 1567. As expected Douglas claimed not guity but he was executed using the Maiden, the device he had brought to Scotland.
3. Thomas Andrews
He was born in 1873, and enjoyed sailing as a child. He became an apprentice at the Harland and Wolff shipyard at age 16 and later took night classes at the Belfast College of Technology where he learned to be a ship designer. He headed the design department in 1928 and in 1908, Andrews drew up the designs for two ships. The being the Olympic, while the second was the popular Titanic. As the designer of the ship, he was in theTitanic‘s during the giant ship crossing of the Atlantic in 1912. Andrews told the captain of the ship frankly that the ship will sink as he knows the extent of the damage sustained by the Titanic when it hit the iceberg. Painfully, a the ship sanks, Andrews was busy helping others to the lifeboats and he died with the ship he designed in the Athlantic ocean.
4. Marie Curie
Marie Curie was a physicist and chemist best known for her work on radioactivity. She also discovered the elements polonium and radium. She was awarded two Nobel Prizes — one in physics which she won jointly with her husband and Henri Becquerel, and another in chemistry. She was the first person to win two Nobel Prizes and still one of only four people (along with Linus Pauling, John Bardeen and Frederick Sanger) to accomplish that feat. Curie formulated the theory of radioactivity but died on July 4, 1934, of aplastic anemia caused by radiation exposure.
5. Aurel Vlaicu
Though, Aurel Vlaicu lived a very short live (1882-1913), he was very creative and left behind a legacy. Aurel was Known as the Romanian pioneer of aviation because he spent his life designing many flying vehicles. His first project had flapping wings. Aurel and his brother created a glider that could maintain a height of 10–15 meters (35–50 ft) in 1909. In October 1909, Aurel produced a very impressive designs for a model of The Bug, which used an engine consisting of twisted rubber cords to spin a propeller. With financial support, Aurel invented the Vlaicu I, thus becoming the first Romanian aircraft engineer during the test flight on June 17, 1910.
He later produced the Vlaicu II in early 1911. He flew the Vlaicu II around Romania to advertise the power of aviation.
On one fateful day, September 13, 1913, Aurel took the Vlaicu II over the Carpathian Mountains to partake in an event organised by the Transylvanian Association for the Literature and Culture of the Romanian People (aka ASTRA). Unfortunately, the plane crashed, and Aurel perished with it at age 31.
6. Henry Smolinski
In 1971, Henry Smolinski and partner Hal Blake decided to crave a career for
themselves in the flying car industry. Through their brilliancy and hardwork they are able to invent the AVE Mizar by taking the wings off a Cessna Skymaster and attaching them to a Ford Pinto.
The flying car was not meant to be produced for the public but for airport operator who will fly the car from one airport to the other and detach it later to be used as car.
However, during one routine flight, there was a problem with detachment of the wings, the flying car crashed and both inventors died.
7. Horace Lawson Hunley
Horace L. Hunley was a lawyer and a member of the Louisiana state legislature. He helped design and build three different submarines models for the Confederacy during the Civil war. His first submarine, built in New Orleans was intentionally sunk when the city fell to the Union in 1862, and his second submarine sunk in Mobile Bay in Alabama.
He funded his third submarine himself, and on Oct. 15, 1863, Hunley, along with seven crewmembers, died when the sub sank in the waters off Charleston, S.C.
8. Valerian Abakovski
Valerian Abakovski was a Latvian inventor that created the Aerowagon in 1921which is a train car powered by a high-speed aeroplane propeller strapped to its front.
He was later joined after the first model by Fyodor Sergeyev (a close friend of Stalin) and four foreign communist sympathizers invited by Sergeyev. When coming back from Tula to Moscow, the Aerowagon unfortunately came off the rails at a high speed, killing Valerian Abakovski, Sergeyev and the other four. They were buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.
9. Max Valier
Max Valier was an early rocket scientist known as the first man to died in the field of rocket engineering. He was a rocket scientist that rocked the 1920s and the 1930s. Through rocket technology, he put rockets on sleds and race cars. With the bigger aim of taking people to the stars, Max dabbled in the then-experimental concept of liquid propellants. For instance, he successfully carried out two experiments using kerosene and water in conduction with liquid oxygen with no safety precautions. His third and final test backfired as the test violently exploded, piercing Max’s pulmonary artery with shrapnel and died within minutes at age 35.
10. Perillos of Athens
brazen bull
Perillos was a cruel inventor. He was a bronze worker who designed a device called the Brazen Bull which is to be used to painfully execute criminals.
The Brazen Bull was a hollow bull. Prisoners were locked inside the hollow Brazen bull and roasted to death by a fire underneath. The guy even designed the Brazen bull to channel the screams of the burning prisoner out of its nose to sound like a bull.
Perillos took his invention to Phalaris, a tyrant lord of Acragas in Sicily. After Perillos showed Phalaris the bull, he was put inside and a fire was lit underneath him to test run his execution machine. Perillos was later thrown off a cliff by Phalaris’ men.
11. Frederick Duesenberg
Frederick Duesenberg was born in 1876 and invented the Marvel automobile in 1904, together with his brother. They later created the two-cylinder Hill Climber in 1906 with financial back up.
They later ventured in race cars and establisshed the Duesenberg Motor Company. Seven of the 10 race cars that passed the finish line in the 1921 Indianapolis 500 were made by Duesenberg, showing good their product was.
On one fateful day, in 1932, Frederick went off the road and crashed while driving one of his cars around the Pennsylvania mountains.
12. Li Si
The story of Li Si shows that what we read or watch in Chinese films are true reflection of their culture.
Li Si was born in 280 BC and was a Chinese Legalist during the Qin dynasty. He began serving under King Zheng as a minister in 247 BC. Li helped the emperor to standardize the weight of coins, construct the Great Wall, influencing a united writing system, and ordaining the act of burning history books.
Li Si also invented the method of execution known as the Five Pains in which the victim’s nose as well as one hand and one foot will be cut off. He will be castrated and finally slice in half at the waist.
King Zheng went on to become the first emperor of China and earn the title Qin Shi Huang (“first emperor”). After King Zheng died, even though the King had wished for Fu Su to take control when he has gone, Li plotted to help the eunuch Zhao Gao become emperor.
Therefore, Li, Zhao, and Hu Hai, a son of King Zheng, faked a decree declaring that Fu had not contributed to the country’s efforts and had to die. Fu committed suicide in despair, and Zhao came to power.
However, Zhao betrayed Li by falsely accusing him of treason. Li was executed by the Five Pains method he invented in 208 BC.
13. Francis Edgar Stanley
Francis Edgar Stanley was born in 1849 and was a teacher turned inventor. He started out as a teacher but later changed to a portrait painter. He later devised a way to atomize paint—technology that eventually became the airbrush. He was later inspired by steam trains and created the Stanley Steamer, a steam-powered automobile made in 1897. The Stanley Steamer set a blistering speed record of 43 kilometers per hour (27 mph) at a Boston automobile show. On July 31, 1918, Francis died when driving one of his steamers. He was heading south when he encountered an obstacle in the road. He ran off the road while swerving to avoid the obstacle, struck a woodpile, and overturned.
14. Franz Reichelt
He was an Austrian-born French Taylor who lived between 1879 to 1912. He attempted to use the suit he has designed as a parachute. Reichelt died after he jumped off the Eiffel Tower wearing his invention, which failed to operate as expected.
15. Michael Dacre
Michael Dacre was another inventor that was killed by the thing he created. He popularize the concept of the Jetpod, a “flying taxi,” in 2009. The jetpod was a good concept to aid faster transportation. It was a small aircraft that could take off and land on a small strip of land, allowing it to move around cities and skip traffic jams or hold up.
The Jetpod was a VQSTOL (“very quiet short takeoff and landing”) aircraft which could move at 500 kilometers per hour (310 mph). Unfortunately, during the test flight in August 2009, the vehicle was struggling to get off the runway and become airborne. And when it finally managed to fly, it went out of control at about 200 meters (650 ft) high and Dacre, 53, died from the crash.
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