From the discoverer who disappeared along with the lighthouse he design to the daredevil whose gizmo vault him to renown and then cut his life short , these are the sad but fascinating stories ofinventors down by their own inventions , adapted from an episode of The List Show on YouTube .
1. Henry Winstanley
Henry Winstanleywas an artificer and locomotive engineer in 17th - hundred England who work up a museum of mechanically skillful wonders and operated a “ water dramatic art ” incorporate fireworks , amongst other features . With the money he made from these attractions , Winstanley bought five ship , two of which were pronto wrecked on the Eddystone rock and roll near Plymouth , England .
Rather than wait for the government to do something about this scourge to merchant marine , in 1696Winstanleydesigneda monolithic lighthouse to mark the serious rocks , and received approval for his design . Over the next few years , he built the granite and wood body structure , anchored by atomic number 26 stanchions to a stark careen several miles off the coast . It at last stood 115 foot tall from base to weathervane , with 60 candle burning in the shabu lantern way to guide nearby ship .
All went well until the nighttime of November 26 , 1703 . A days - foresightful storm , one of the magnanimous in British history , was biff the English Channel sea-coast . Gale - effect winds and wave carried away Winstanley ’s lighthousewith Winstanley in it — and neither was ever check again .
2. Thomas Midgley, Jr.
Some of Thomas Midgley , Jr. ’sdiscoveriesfound widespread function in the 20th century . The American chemist enter out the compound tetraethyl lead-in could be added to gasoline to prevent engine knocking in automobiles , and determined that a certainchlorofluorocarbonmade an excellent refrigerant . Though both of these applications ended up have a terrible outcome on the environment , he receive numerous palm for his advanced work as a chemical company executive and researcher .
But it was n’t moderate poisoning from his gasoline experiments that killed him . At age 51 , Midgley contracted polio and misplace the use of his legs . He invent a pulley system over his layer so he could lift himself into a sitting position . Sadly , on November 2 , 1944 , Midgley got caught up in the system ’s ropes and was strangled to death .
3. Karel Soucek
Karel Soucek , a Czech - Canadian daredevil , inject to fame in 1984 when he became the first stuntman in 23 years to survive going over Niagara Falls in a barrel . The key was his usance - designed , plastic and metal cylinder , which he counterweighted at one conclusion so it would remain upright as he plunged over the falls . After Soucek climbed into the drum and his assistants pushed him into the piss , he sped downstream at 75 mile an hour . Just 3.2 seconds later on , he was at the bottom of the drop , bruised but triumphant .
But affair get going horribly lopsided a few month later when , in a new gun barrel of his own design , he arranged to be discharge from the roof of the Houston Astrodome into a vat of piss . As Soucek was unloosen from the ceiling , the barrel begin to gyrate off kilter and dropped 180 feet , land aside from the target . Soucek laterdiedat the hospital .
4. Harry Smolinski
Harry Smolinski also tried to make up a vehicle of sorts . The aeronautic engineer had a successful career project jet aircraft and rockets , and in the former seventies , he became obsessed with building a fell car . But instead of creating the whole thing from starting line , Smolinski wanted to plan lightweight wings and a bottom that could be bolted on to customers ’ existing car for trajectory , and then take for veritable drive . His prototype was constructed out of a Cessna twinned - locomotive engine plane and a Ford Pinto . The squad acknowledge that there were problems with the idea , but proclaimed “ we sense we have the answers . ”
Smolinski and a carbon monoxide gas - pilot took his Ford - Cessna combo out for a spin from California ’s Ventura County Airport on September 11 , 1973.Momentsafter mockery , the airport manager saw a pillar of opprobrious smoke rising from the site of a clangor . Bad welding and some loose component part were charge for the fatalaccident .
5. William Nelson
A lot of inventor have assay to make bicycles , cars , or trains faster , with disastrous results . Not much is known aboutWilliam Nelson , who in 1903 was a 24 - class - older employee at General Electric in Schenectady , New York . He worked on inventing a motorized bicycle , and took it for a test run on a J. J. Hill opposite his father - in - law ’s house in the village of Mapletown . He fall off the machine and was kill instantly . The New York Timesnoted , “ Nelson was regard as an artificer of much promise . ”
6. Valerian Ivanovich Abakovsky
A Latvia - born Soviet chauffeur key Valerian Ivanovich Abakovsky attempted to produce a in high spirits - f number railcar so the Soviet officials he work for could travel around the vast state quicker . At the fourth dimension , the Soviet Union was encouraging engineers to experiment with put aircraft propellers on train to speed up up country travelling . The 25 - class - one-time inventor designed a sleek , ellipse - regulate car go with an aircraft engine and a propellor on the back to increase thrust . He nickname it theAerowagon . It could reach a speed of 87 miles per hour .
On July 24 , 1921,Abakovskyand around two dozen passengers boarded the Aerowagon and traveled safely from Moscow to a metropolis about 120 mi away . On the trip back , however , the car leap the track go 70 miles an hour , killing the inventor and five European diplomats on board . All were buried in a place of honour in the Soviet Union — within the Kremlin itself .
7. Max Valier
Max Valierwent a stride further . In the 1920s , the Austrian aviator became capture with the possibility of space flight of stairs and developed a four - part programme for achieve arugula - powered space locomotion : the first stage was engine tests , the 2d was build ground - based Eruca vesicaria sativa - power vehicle , the third was developing Eruca vesicaria sativa - power aircraft , and the fourth dance step was turning the aircraft into a spacecraft . alas , Valier never got past step three .
In 1928 , having reconcile on an engine purpose , Valier and two colleagues build arocketcar power by strong propellant rocket . It reach a speed of 145 miles an hour in trial drives . But to go quicker and eventually lift off the earth , Valier experimented with liquified fuels in his aircraft prototypes . On May 17 , 1930 , one of them exploded , making Valier the firstcasualtyof the proto - space eld .
8. Francis Edgar Stanley
WhenFrancis Edgar Stanleywas attempt to make his own speedy vehicle , he turned to steam world power . With his counterpart brotherFreelan , he begin developing a steam - powered car in 1897 . By 1899 , after make the Stanley Motor Carriage Company , the brothers had sell more than 200 “ Stanley Steamers , ” making them the most successful automakers in the U.S. Fueled by water vapor , the opened - topped cars were riotous than other former vehicle : One set a speed record book for a steam - power car of intimately 128 miles per hr .
The New York Heraldnoted , “ Mr. Stanley and his crony always force back elevator car which substantiate the latest handiwork of their plant . ” But that handcraft flex lethal on July 31 , 1918 , when Francis Stanley ’s personal Steamer overturned on Massachusetts ’s Newburyport Turnpike , killing its maker .
9. Horace Lawson Hunley
It ’s not just land - based vehicle that can be deadly . During the Civil War , the Union navy blockaded southerly port , and the Confederate government offered a $ 50,000 bounty to anyone who could fall off one of the Union ship . A Confederate technologist namedHorace Lawson Hunleyaccepted the challenge . In Mobile , Alabama , Hunley work on two early U-boat that flunk , but his third attempt , theH.L. Hunley , shew its worth by sinking an sure-enough vessel in a manifestation . In a later trial , however , five man died when the sub fill with water and sank .
Hunley was not deterred . After bringing the sub to Charleston , South Carolina , he rally a newfangled crew and continued the trials . During a standard usage on October 15 , 1863 , theHunleywent down with all manus — and this fourth dimension , its namesake was aboard . But that was n’t the conclusion of the sub ’s story . Soon after , the submarine was raised from the harbor and brought into operation in the Confederate fleet . TheHunleydid in reality become the first Cuban sandwich to sink a Union war vessel , but in doing so , it sank once more , and again the whole crewdied .
10. Thomas Andrews
If Hunley ’s submarine sandwich vocalise cursed , it ca n’t liken to the mythology of our next invention . Thomas Andrewswas the manage director at Belfast ’s Harland & Wolff shipyard and one of the naval designer of its most luxurious creation , the RMSTitanic .
Andrews went on the first voyage of the ship to monitor its performance at sea . The first three days of the voyage were uneventful , but after the ship hit an iceberg on the night of April 14 , 1912 , Andrews is said to have observed the damage with Captain Edward Smith and determined that the vessel had two hours pull up stakes , at most .
Of course , affirm that write up is basically impossible , give the ultimate destiny of the two men , but the mythical overtone of the news report have prove tempting to generations of storytellers . Fact very well may have immingle with fabrication over the class , but some detail of the tragedy are undeniable . Andrews supposedly seek staterooms to urge skeptical passengers into lifeboat , do it full well that there were too few keister for all of them . In the end , he wentdownwith theTitanic , and his body was never recovered .
11. Jean François Pilâtre de Rozier
Jean François Pilâtre de Rozier , a Gallic pill roller , made the first human - powered , untethered balloon flight in 1783 . Designed by the famous Montgolfier buddy , the balloon was fueled by a fervency that ignite the air inside the balloon , storm it aloft .
The downside to the Montgolfiers ’ design was the large amount of combustible fuel , such as hay , that had to be taken aboard . But hay would n’t provide enough power to achieve Rozier ’s next goal of fly across the English Channel . He build up upon the blistering - air plan and bring a second balloon filled with hydrogen , a flatulence that ’s lighter than gentle wind . Rozier believe the surplus buoyancy could take him across the Channel .
Despite his ground in chemistry , Rozier apparently forget that H is also extremely inflammable . As he soared across the French countryside on June 15 , 1785 , something function rottenly wrong . The hydrogenballooncaught fire in mid - air and plump to the soil , realise Rozier and his travel fellow traveller the earth ’s first fatalities in a trajectory accident .
12. Otto Lilienthal
Otto Lilienthal was a nineteenth - century aviation trailblazer who was inspired to contemplate backstage aeromechanics after observing birds ’ front . He invented a number of gliders and flying machines at his workshop near Berlin . One of them , knight the “ normal sailplane , ” had a 23 - foot wingspan ; the person launch the sailplane held on to supports underneath in a sitting spatial relation . To publicize his inventions , Lilienthalcommissioned photographs render the gliders in natural action . But the photograph conceal one problem : The normal glider was knockout to head .
During a test trajectory on August 9 , 1896 , Lilienthal ’s glidersuddenlystalled and cant head - first toward the ground . Lilienthal was unable to regain control , and he clash - landed from a tiptop of about 50 feet , break off his cervix . He become flat the next 24-hour interval , though his research into the mechanism of flight went on to influence the Wright brothers .
13. William Bullock
William Bullockmade some key technological approach to the impress crush . As a paper editor in chief in the mid-19th 100 , Bullock sought to cut down on the labor required to print the intelligence . He evolve a rotary press that could be continually run with newspaper publisher , obviate the want for constant manual feeding and increasing output to around 11,000 sheets per hour .
As with many newfangled inventions , though , Bullock ’s press could be wonky . On April 2 , 1867 , he was making adjustments with his foot to a pressing being installed at another newspaper ’s function . His stage became embroil in a move knock and was shell . A few days later , he developed gangrene and underwent amputation of his leg . Things got worse from there : He died from operative complicatedness .
