The creator of the Ilya Muromets went on to give the world the helicopter.

1919 · 1939 · apart: 20 years

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.

◍ Show on the globe

The event

• Sikorsky's Ilya Muromets1913 · Saint Petersburg. 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.

20th century

More amazing facts

• 1918 The Spanish flu did not come from Spain.
• 1918 · 2012 The last veteran of World War I died in 2012, the year the Higgs boson was found.
• 1918 A pigeon was awarded France’s Croix de Guerre.
• 1919 Boston was flooded with molasses the day before the US adopted Prohibition.
• 1919 · 1958 The title of one of Africa's most translated novels comes from an Irish poet.
• 1919 · 1921 Einstein signed over his Nobel Prize before he had won it. Under their 1919 divorce settlement, the money from a future prize was to go to Mileva Marić, and she did get it.

All amazing facts (1058) →