Franz Reichelt
Franz Reichelt—AKA “The Flying Tailor”—was an Austrian-born tailor living in France during the early 1900s, and is credited with pioneering an entirely wearable parachute suit that looked less like a parachute and more like a… well, a bedsheet held up with wires. I mean, just look at this thing. It’s not really a device that screams “sturdy,” but that didn’t stop Reichelt from testing it out in an inaugural jump off the Eiffel Tower in early February of 1912.
In fact, he was so confident in that jump that he actually called the local press over to film his invention in action. Needless to say, it didn’t go as planned: Reichelt plummeted from the tower, suit and all, and crushed his skull, spine, and a few other major bones when he hit the ground, dying almost instantly. The entire event was captured on film and, if you’re not faint of heart, you can see the entire debacle for yourself here.
