10 Inventors Killed by Their Own Inventions

Thomas Midgley, Jr. - 1944

This one has sort of a twist ending, so stay tuned. Thomas Midgley, Jr. was one of the men responsible for developing leaded gasoline, and loved to do stunts to demonstrate how safe it was, like huffing from a beaker of it for 60 seconds straight at a press conference. So did he die of lead poisoning like you'd expect? Nope! Midgley also suffered from polio, and designed and built a complex system of ropes and pulleys to support his body in bed without pain. In 1944, he got tangled in this device and suffocated before anybody could set him free. Oh, the irony.

Horace Lawson Hunley - 1863

The invention of the submarine changed the face of modern warfare, with naval warfare now taking place both above and below the water's surface. One of the most important men in the development of the sub was Confederate engineer Horace L. Hunley, who created a number of revolutionary hand-powered submarines in the 1860s. His third vessel, named after himself, was going out on a routine test when Hunley decided to take captaincy himself. The primitive sub sank beneath the waves, killing everybody aboard. However, it was later dredged from the ocean floor and put back into service, becoming the first submarine to sink a ship in military conflict.

Otto Lilienthal - 1896

You don't get a nickname like the Glider King by keeping your feet on the ground. German inventor Otto Lilienthal was one of the pioneers of unpowered flight, putting together a vast variety of gliders and taking them on daring excursions. Unfortunately, his designs weren't quite as stable as he thought they were, and in August of 1896 Lilienthal launched his latest model from the Rhinow Hills. His first test flight went great, lifting him to a height of 1,150 feet. The second try wasn't so lucky, as it hit an air pocket and stalled, dropping him more than 50 feet to his death.

William Bullock - 1867

The inventor of the web rotary printing press, William Bullock was a forward-thinking dude who made printed material affordable and fast to produce. There wasn't a ton of danger involved in his invention, as it was just a refinement of existing ideas and didn't incorporate any toxic materials. That didn't stop it from taking his life, though. When he was installing a press in Philadelphia, Bullock attempted to kick a slipped pulley back into place and the machine fell and crushed his foot. He contracted gangrene from the injury and died from the infection.

Henry Smolinski - 1973

Man has always dreamed of flying, but the development of aviation has taken a lot of lives. One of the most ridiculous was engineer Henry Smolinski. After leaving Northrop-Grumman, he started his own company devoted to bringing a flying car to the market. Unfortunately for Henry, he based his prototype on a Ford Pinto with a Cessna Skymaster tail and wings grafted on it. When Smolinski took his vehicle up on a test flight with pilot Harold Blake, he actually managed liftoff, but then the tail strut fell off the car sending it plunging to the ground and killing both men.

Marie Curie - 1934

This is a tough one, because what killed legendary French physicist Marie Curie was invisible to the naked eye. Curie developed the process to isolate radium from component minerals and found a way to measure ambient radioactivity from "hot" elements. Unfortunately, she didn't discover that exposure to radiation is extremely hazardous to the human body, and she was stricken with aplastic anemia as a direct result of exposure to her lab samples and passed away.

Henry Winstanley - 1703

Architects are inventors, too, especially when their buildings have function as well as form. Henry Winstanley was a shipping magnate who started to get pissed off when several of his boats got wrecked on the Eddystone Rock in the Falkland Islands. His solution was to build a lighthouse, which he designed himself. He was so confident that it would survive anything that he often stated his desire to be inside it during "the greatest storm that ever was." It's not confirmed that the storm of November 27, 1703 was the greatest ever, but it was big enough to topple the tower with Winstanley inside, killing him.

Valerian Abakovsky - 1921

Inventing new means of transportation is one of the fastest ways to get yourself killed - no pun intended. When you strap an engine on something, all hell can break loose. Russian scientist Valerian Abakovsky's pride and joy was the Aerowagon, a high-speed railcar equipped with an aeroplane engine. It was built to transport Soviet officials, but on its maiden voyage it derailed outside of Moscow, killing Abakovsky and everyone else on board.