What distinguishes human beings from the rest of the species on Earth is his ability to invent. To evolve not only through genes, but also through technology. Today we can fly, travel by car or go into space, but behind these crucial inventions, many inventors and adventurers lost their lives, testing the first prototypes. The list of inventors who died while trying their own inventions has grown in recent years.
We will leave aside the testers of cars, airplanes, submarines, diving suits and engines, because the list would be too long. Hundreds of daring pioneers lost their lives trying to fulfill their dream of flying, exploring the seabed, riding a vehicle at high speed, or finding a new fuel.
One of the most famous cases is that of Marie Curiethe only person to hold two Nobel Prizes in different categories, Physics and Chemistry. Curie was the pioneer of radioactivitydiscovering radium and polonium. Exposure to these radioactive elements during her investigations was what killed her.
Inventors who died testing their inventions
Another sadly known case is that of the French tailor Franz Reicheltwho died in 1912 after jump from the Eiffel Tower with a parachute of his invention. He told authorities he would use a mannequin, but tried it on himself. You can see its sad end in this video, but be careful, you can see the blow.
One of the most terrible cases is that of Thomas Midgley Jr. Two of his inventions, leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in aerosols, used for decades, They have killed millions of people around the worldbecause they cause cancer. Today they are prohibited.
Thomas Midgley Jr. himself, after contracting polio, designed a system of ropes and pulleys to help him move in bed. In 1944 he became entangled in it and was strangled to death. You can learn more about this cursed inventor in this card:
Thomas Andrews was the naval architect of the Titanic. He participated in the maiden voyage and died along with 1,500 other people when the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank on April 14, 1912. Although, strictly speaking, in this case it was not his fault.
It may seem that this type of inventor deaths They are things of the past, but they are not like that. In 2020 Mike Hughes built a homemade rocket to rise a few thousand meters and prove that the Earth was flat. The rocket crashed when the landing parachutes failed.
One of the most recent cases, which caused a lot of talk a couple of years ago, is that of Oceangate. Its CEO, Stockton Rush, inventor of the Titan mini-submarine to visit the remains of the Titanic, died on June 17, 2023, along with four other passengers, when the submarine implodeddue to a flaw in its design.
The last record of the list of inventors killed by their own inventions from Wikipedia, corresponds to John Williams, who died in 2024 when his replica of the P-51 aircraft, designed and built by his own company, crashed into a tree during a failed landing.
It’s human nature: to invent, explore, take risks… For better or worse, that list will continue to grow forever..