Sikorsky's Ilya Muromets
The first plane with a cabin, a bedroom and a toilet
In 1913 Igor Sikorsky built a four-engined plane with a heated cabin, wicker chairs, a bedroom, electric light and history's first airborne toilet. In February 1914 it carried a record 16 passengers, but war broke out and the Muromets became bombers.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Did you know
Just ten years after the Wright brothers' first flight, a plane with a toilet took off. Sikorsky's four-engined Ilya Muromets of 1913 also had a heated cabin, a bedroom and electric light. Share →
The creator of the Ilya Muromets went on to give the world the helicopter. Igor Sikorsky emigrated to the USA in 1919, and in 1939 flew the VS-300, whose main-plus-tail-rotor layout most helicopters still use. Share →
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Whole world
- 1914–1918 World War I — 1 year later
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — 5 years later
- 1920 League of Nations founded — 7 years later
Europe
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — 8 years earlier
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — 6 years later
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — 15 years later
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — 20 years later
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — 23 years later
Middle East
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — 5 years earlier
- 1915–1917 Armenian genocide — 2 years later
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — 3 years later
- 1916–1918 The Arab Revolt — 3 years later
- 1917 Balfour Declaration — 4 years later
Africa
- 1897 The British sack Benin City — 16 years earlier
- 1904–1908 The Herero and Nama genocide — 9 years earlier
- 1922 Discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb — 9 years later
- 1935–1937 Italy invades Ethiopia — 22 years later
Asia
- 1894–1895 First Sino-Japanese War — 19 years earlier
- 1896–1898 Philippine Revolution — 17 years earlier
- 1911–1912 Xinhai Revolution — 2 years earlier
- 1923 Great Kantō earthquake — 10 years later
- 1931 China floods — 18 years later
Americas
- 1910–1920 Mexican Revolution — 3 years earlier
- 1913 Ford's moving assembly line — same year
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — 1 year later
- 1914 Death of Martha, the last passenger pigeon — 1 year later
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — 16 years later
Oceania
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — 20 years earlier
- 1893 Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom — 20 years earlier
- 1911 Amundsen reaches the South Pole — 2 years earlier
- 1912 The death of Scott's polar party — 1 year earlier
- 1936 Death of the last thylacine — 23 years later
Alive at the time
- Thomas Edison (aged 66)
- Nikola Tesla (aged 57)
- Marie Curie (aged 46)
- Mahatma Gandhi (aged 44)
- Vladimir Lenin (aged 43)
- Ernest Rutherford (aged 42)
- Winston Churchill (aged 39)
- Joseph Stalin (aged 35)
- Albert Einstein (aged 34)
- Pablo Picasso (aged 32)