The Greek myth about Icarus involves a father-son pair who try to fly. It is a tale of hubris (see Dec. 30. 2012 entry). |
One
dreamer who was more capable than most of achieving dreams was the
original “Renaissance Man,” Leonardo. (We call Leonardo “da
Vinci,” which means “of Vinci,” or “from the town of Vinci.”
It wasn't his last name, because people didn't have last names then,
but the place name added to his name helped people then and still
helps people now to know which Leonardo we mean.)
Leonardo
da Vinci is best known today for his paintings the
Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. But he was a
sculptor as well as a painter, and an architect, musician, scientist,
mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist,
cartographer, botanist, and writer. He was a genius and quite
possibly the most interesting man in the world.
One
of his inventions was a glider or flying machine. Actually, Leonardo
designed several such machines, and we know for sure that some didn't
work. What we do not know is whether one or more of his machines DID
work.
It
may be that Leonardo took a hang-gliding sort of flight about 400
years before the Wright brothers invented the airplane. Read about
this possibility here.
At
any rate, an entry in Leonardo's notebook suggests that he tried out
one of his flying machine ideas on this date in 1496. This test, at
least, did not work.
Explore
some more...
Check
out the Museum of Science page about Leonardo's
Mysterious Machinery.
ThinkQuest
also has a Leonardo page.
Also
on this date:
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