Eilmer the flying monk
An English monk leaps from a tower on home-made wings
According to William of Malmesbury, Eilmer strapped wings to his hands and feet, jumped from the abbey tower and flew more than a furlong — about 200 metres — before crashing, breaking both legs and limping ever after. He blamed it on forgetting to fit a tail.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 11th century
Did you know
Two medieval would-be aviators blamed their crashes on the same thing: forgetting a tail. The story is told both of Abbas ibn Firnas in 9th-century Córdoba and of the English monk Eilmer, who leapt from a tower around 1010. Share →
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 988 Christianization of Kievan Rus' — 22 years earlier
Middle East
- 1010 Ferdowsi completes the Shahnameh — same year
- 1025 Avicenna's Canon of Medicine — 15 years later
Africa
- c. 1000 Extinction of the elephant birds — 10 years earlier
- 1006 Supernova SN 1006 — 4 years earlier
Asia
- c. 1010 The Tale of Genji — same year
- 1010 The Brihadisvara Temple at Thanjavur — same year
Americas
- 1021 Norse in North America — 11 years later
Alive at the time
- Vladimir the Great (aged 50)
- Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (aged 30)
- Ferdowsi (aged 70)
- Æthelred the Unready (aged 44)
- Leif Erikson (aged 40)
- Murasaki Shikibu (aged 37)
- Yaroslav the Wise (aged 32)
- Cnut the Great (aged 15)
- Edward the Confessor (aged 7)
- Sei Shōnagon (aged 44)