TISI

Swimming Aids

Invented in 1925 by Italian M. Goventosa de Udine, these swimming aids were made from bike tires and allowed the wearer to move at speeds of up to 93 mph. And while they’re a far cry from being fashionable—or even remotely comfortable—at least you could move faster than a running cheetah. Right?

Swimming Aids

The Straw Hat Radio

Invented by an American in 1931, this is a portable radio stored in a straw hat. It never did make waves. You might blame a massive depression; we blame the choice in material.

The Straw Hat Radio

The Shovel Car

Is this car the mark of benevolent innovation? The 1934-invented car featured a shovel in front to prevent casualties on the hectic Parisian streets. The shovel would catch—instead of maim—stray pedestrians.

The Shovel Car

Rolling Bridge

The Rolling Bridge was a British invention that emerged during the Victorian era—a time when the impractical and unnatural was truly en vogue. The invention served as an alternative to the traditional bridge, and enabled the user to move across the water on a rolling platform that was attached to rails. It didn’t remain in use for very long due to, you guessed it, impracticality.

Rolling Bridge

Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo was born on April 15, 1452, in the Tuscan hill town of Vinci, in the territory of Florence. He was the illegitimate son of Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci, a Florentine notary, and Caterina, a peasant who may have been a slave from the Middle East. Leonardo had no surname in the modern sense, "da Vinci" simply meaning "of Vinci": his full birth name was "Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci", meaning "Leonardo, son of (Mes)ser Piero from Vinci."

Biography

The Parachute

Forever fascinated by the possibility of flight, Da Vinci spent much of his time thinking up ways to get mankind in the air–and perhaps more importantly, how to get them back down safely.

Eventually, he came up with the first-ever parachute; a wooden pyramid structure draped with a piece of cloth that would slow down a person’s terminal velocity as they fell to earth. As Da Vinci himself wrote, it allowed man to “throw himself down from any great height without suffering any injury.”

The Parachute