Page 25 - GK Class 08

Also known as the Glider King, he was the first person to make repeated
gliding flights successfully. In one of his flights on August 9, 1896, he fell
from a height of 17 metres breaking his spine. He died the next day. His
last words were — “Small sacrifices must be made.”

5

He invented the world s first motorcycle. He called it a velocipede and ’
it was actually a converted bicycle powered by a steam engine. On
June 01, 1896, Roper was testing the machine on a bicycle racing track
and was lapping the pedal powered two-wheelers at over forty mph.
Suddenly, he wiped out and died. The autopsy showed the cause of
death to be a heart attack, but it s not known if the attack caused the ’
crash or if the crash caused the attack. He was seventy two.

6

He was a reputed Russian physician and revolutionary who conducted
many scientific experiments for becoming young again through blood
transfusion. In one such experiment, he transfused blood from one of his
patients who was suffering from malaria and tuberculosis. He died from
the infections shortly after.
7

He was an American nuclear physicist who worked on the Manhatten
Project after the war, Slotin continued to experiment with plutonium
and accidently set off a fission reaction which released a hard burst of
radiation. Realizing what he d done, Slotin heroically covered the ’
material with his body while the others made a run for the hills. He
died on May 30, 1946, two weeks after the exposure.

8

Clue Corner

a) Otto Lilienthal b) Sylvester H Roper c) Louis Slotin d) Franz Reichelt
e) Marie Curie f) Horace Lawson Hunley g) Henry Winstanley h) Alexander Bogdonov

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