• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Early Attempt At Human Flight Came 900 Years Before The Wright Brothers. It Did Not End Well

November 13, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

In 1903, the Wright brothers made the first sustained human flight, flying the first plane above Kitty Hawk, North Carolina for a then-impressive 12 seconds. Before that, on November 21, 1783, in Paris, France, the first hot air balloon ride took place. 

But there were other attempts at flight that came before that – and given that they aren’t hailed as the first human flights, you’d better believe they weren’t what you’d term a “success”. Some are likely just stuff of legend, but one with significant historical backing took place in the 11th century CE, and did not end well for the monk who attempted it.

Advertisement

Around 1000 to 1010 CE, as estimated by historian Lynn White Jr from historical accounts, Eilmer of Malmesbury, England, made his historic flight. 12th century CE historian William of Malmesbury provided an account mentioning Eilmer, in relation to the appearance of Halley’s comet in April 1066.

“A comet, a star foretelling, they say, change in kingdoms appeared trailing its long and fiery tail across the sky,” William wrote. “Where a certain monk of our monastery, Eilmer by name, bowed down with terror at the sight of the brilliant star, sagely cried ‘thou art come! A cause of grief to many a mother art thou come; I have seen thee before; but now I behold thee much more terrible, threatening to hurl destruction on this land.”

While mentioning Eilmer, the generally informed historian clearly thought it a good time to relay an anecdote about him, likely gleaned when he entered the Abbey of Malmesbury in his youth.

“He was a man learned for those times, of ripe old age, and in his early youth had hazarded a deed of remarkable boldness. He had by some means, I scarcely know what, fastened wings to his hands and feet so that, mistaking fable for truth, he might fly like Daedalus, and, collecting the breeze on the summit of a tower, he flew for more than the distance of a furlong,” equivalent to 201 meters (660 feet), he wrote of the flight. 

Advertisement



A more modern take on the wingsuit.

Though we don’t have any good representations of the flying equipment used for this one-way flight, the account mentions “pennae”, referring to feathers or wings.

“We must conclude that Eilmer flew with rigid wings of considerable size, since they were attached both to his arms and legs,” White wrote of the tale. “Probably they were intended to flap like those of a bird, but were hinged in such a way that they would not fold upward but would soar like a glider.”

Advertisement

While a furlong sounds like he gained some reasonable air time, in the end, gravity did its job.

“Agitated by the violence of the wind and a current of air, as well as the consciousness of his rash attempt, he fell and broke both his legs, and was lame ever after. He used to relate as the cause of the failure that he had forgotten to provide himself with a tail.”

Though Eilmer gained notoriety for much of the Middle Ages, his place in flight history became mostly forgotten later down the line. 

If only he had remembered to wear a tail.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Cricket-Manchester test likely to be postponed after India COVID-19 case
  2. EU to attend U.S. trade meeting put in doubt by French anger
  3. Soccer-West Ham win again, Leicester and Napoli falter
  4. Was Jesus A Hallucinogenic Mushroom? One Scholar Certainly Thought So

Source Link: Early Attempt At Human Flight Came 900 Years Before The Wright Brothers. It Did Not End Well

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Get Ready, Skywatchers: A “Dazzling” Total Lunar Eclipse Is Coming In 2025
  • How A Man Won The Lottery 14 Times Using Unbelievably Basic Math
  • What Are The Amazon’s “Flying Rivers”? And Why Every Single One Of Us Relies On Them
  • Curious New Microbe With Tiny Genome Toes The Line Between Cell And Virus
  • We’ve Just Found Out Where The World’s Longest-Living Vertebrate Has Its Babies
  • For The First Time, An Animal Has Been Shown Responding To Plant-Produced Sounds
  • Deep Ocean Currents Have “Weather” And Seasonal Changes That We’re Only Just Learning About
  • Stratus: What Are The Symptoms Of The Latest COVID-19 Subvariant To Spread Around The World?
  • In 1927, Henry Ford Tried To Build A Town In The Amazon And Things Went Very, Very Badly
  • Human Botfly: Say Hello To The Parasite That Would Love To Get Under Your Skin
  • Is The Weather Making Your Headache Worse?
  • “Zoning Out” Actually Helps You Learn? Data From Up To 90,000 Brain Cells Says So
  • Over Past 250,000 Years, Three Major Waves Of Human-Neanderthal Interbreeding Have Been Identified
  • Zebrafish “Catch” Yawns Just Like Us – We Might Need To Rethink Evolution To Account For That
  • 80,000-Year-Old Neanderthal Footprints Reveal How Children Hunted On Beaches
  • 5 Animals That Have Absolutely No Business Jumping (In Our Very Humble, Definitely Unbiased Opinion)
  • Polar Vortex Patterns Explain Winter Cold Snaps Against Background Warming Trend
  • Scientists Tracked An Olm For 2,569 Days And It Did Not Move An Inch
  • Look Out For “Fireballs”: The Best Meteor Shower Of 2025 Is About To Commence, According To NASA
  • Why Do Many Large Language Models Give The Same Answer To This “Random” Number Query?
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version