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Legendary Losses: Biggest Losers In History

Khalid Elhassan July 25, 2023 32 min

Loser - The Battle of Red Cliffs — The Battle of Red Cliffs. Rebellion Research

A Parachute Pioneer With More Courage Than Sense

Colorized photo of Franz Reichelt’s parachute suit. Pinterest

Franz Reichelt (1879 – 1912) was an Austrian-born French tailor who was fascinated with flight since childhood. After the invention of the airplane, he sought to invent a device that would allow pilots to parachute safely to the ground if they ran into trouble aloft. His efforts were spurred on when, in 1911, the Aero Club de France offered a 10,000 Franc prize to the first inventor of a successful parachute. Reichelt’s design was a suit that featured a cloak with a big silken hood. It weighed about twenty pounds, and had a surface area of around 340 square feet.

Reichelt tested his design several times on dummies thrown out of his fifth floor apartment, but without success. Despite the repeated failures, he petitioned the Paris police for permission to test his invention on a dummy from the Eiffel Tower. Once a permit was secured, he proceeded to drum up interest among journalists and the public to witness the test at 8AM, February 4^th, 1912. On the appointed day, Reichelt arrived clad in his parachute suit. He was met by a crowd of onlookers gathered at the Eiffel Tower, outside a cordoned off drop zone.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.