In the first few years of the twentieth century, inventors discovered how to soar into the sky. This breath-taking true story is about two men who, on one fateful weekend, tried to show the world a way back down.
It was early February 1912, and Franz Reichelt, a Paris tailor, and Rodman Law, a self-described "professional jackass" from New York, were poised, respectively, on the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty, ready to deploy an experimental parachute. In bat wings and bundled linen, they were almost certain their contraptions would work. Here is the tale of their inspirations and their pluck-and what happened next.
Jump! is part of Inventions: Untold Stories of the Beautiful Era, a collection of incredible true stories from the belle époque, an age of innovation, daring, bluster, and beauty when anything seemed possible. Each piece can be read, listened to, and marvelled at in a single sitting.
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[A deadly wind arrived in Paris on the early morning of February 4, 1912, slapping cobblestones and iron balustrades with ice and whipping foam into the Seine]***
(Amazon Original Stories, 28 March 2019, 53 pages, ebook, borrowed from @AmazonKindle #PrimeReading)
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Another interesting piece of non-fiction from an era I'm not familiar with. Like The Diamon Formula, this was well researched and written in an engaging and interesting way, including a decent amount of pictures from the era.
