Back in the early 20th century, food and cigarette companies would sometimes include collectible cards with their products. And that’s exactly what happened around 1910 when Wills’s Cigarettes included cards about the history of flying with their smokes.
The cards included illustrations of both successful and unsuccessful attempts by humanity at conquering the air. And some of the drawings are simply gorgeous.
The collectible card above featured Otto Lilienthal, a German aviation pioneer born in 1848, who made several successful attempts at flight with gliding machines. Lilienthal died in 1896 at the age of 48 when one of his gliders stalled out and he fell roughly 50 feet, breaking his neck.
