Monday, May 11, 2020

"I'll Do It Myself" Moments in History


When it comes to a particular scientific breakthrough, or generally trying to prove something can be done, sometimes it comes down to one person putting it all on the line and hammering it out themselves. History is pretty wild, but also this Tumblr thread proves why mundane people are incredibly important to history. Also, here's the very fast story of the first soldier to take way too many military-grade amphetamines.

1.

Text - ahmadove 26.9k points · 1 day ago - edited 1 day ago Perhaps when no one believed Barry Marshall that H pylori can cause stomach ulcers so he thought screw it, I'll test it on myself and ended up getting the Nobel prize?

2.

Text - KnightHawk37 35.9k points · 1 day ago Nikola Tesla was tasked with lighting up the world's fair but Thomas Edison wouldn't allow him to use any of his patents so Tesla had to invent a new lightbulb that didn't use any of Edison's patents and could still have thousands made in time for the event.

3.

Text - FinanceCorpStrategy 5.7k points · 1 day ago · edited 1 day ago The guy who started fedex wrote a college paper about a nationwide overnight shipping company, and got a C...started the company anyways. Later after he started it and it was struggling, he couldn't get a loan and the company was almost bankrupt, and he bet next weeks payroll at the casino on roulette and won. Also got a silver star in the Vietnam war and now co- owns the Washington redskins...the latter often viewed as the bi

4.

Text - PulitzerHowitzer 1.9k points 1 day ago The giant Norse Axeman who held the chokepoint at The Battle of Stamford Bridge: "By the time the bulk of the English army had arrived, the Vikings on the west side were either slain or fleeing across the bridge. The English advance was then delayed by the need to pass through the choke-point presented by the bridge itself. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has it that a giant Norse axeman (possibly armed with a Dane Axe) blocked the narrow crossing and sing

5.

Text - big_rona 40.2k points · 1 day ago 2 In 1947 a guy named Thor Heyerdahl was trying to prove his theory that the Polynesian islands were settled by people from South America, not Asia. Nobody believed him because it was thought that crossing such a large ocean with the technology they had back then was impossible. So he decides to build a boat using only the tools and materials available at the time these migrations took place. And then he sailed that boat across the Pacific Ocean, nearly d

6.

Text - mrbibs350 37.9k points · 1 day ago · edited 1 day ago Maurice Hilleman invented over 40 vaccines during his career in the pharmaceutical industry. In 1963 his oldest daughter caught the mumps. He cultured a sample from her, developed a vaccine, and injected it into his younger daughter. That vaccine is still in use and has saved millions of lives. In total, it's estimated that his work has saved 118 million lives globally.

7.

Text - pyrangarlit 35.0k points - 1 day ago - edited 1 day ago John Snow (not that one, the father of epidemiology). No one believed him that the Cholera outbreak in what is now Soho was because of a contaminated water pump. He broke it. They arrested him for vandalism and held him until the outbreak suddenly ended...

8.

Text - Iivaitte 34.2k points - 1 day ago Otis invented pretty much what we consider the modern elevator. Nobody was convinced it was safe so he hoisted himself up extremely high and had somebody cut the cable with an axe to prove how confident he was that the elevator was safe regardless of almost worst case scenarios.

9.

Text - orphicadmium 6.9k points · 1 day ago I'm surprised no one's mentioned Catherine the Great of Russia. She decided her husband was useless (which, granted, he was) and proceeded to set up a military coup to overthrow him. Even with the plan being discovered early, she dressed herself in military garb and marched with her new army, which had just sworn loyalty to her, down to Peter's palace, where he was forced to resign the throne, all without a single drop of blood shed. At least until Pet

10.

Text - Haploid-life 26.0k points · 1 day ago The doctor stationed in Antarctica that removed his own appendix. Goddamn.

11.

Text - gaenji 21.9k points · 1 day ago · edited 1 day ago Brian Acton interviewed at Facebook and got turned down. He said fuck it and built Whatsapp. Several years later, Facebook bought Whatsapp for $19B

12.

Text - flamebroiledhodor 21.1k points · 1 day ago Cliff Stoll (The Cuckoos Egg) noticed weird traffic on his university servers. No one believed him that there was any risk occurring. Ended up uncovering a major hacking attempt to steal missile designs and basically created internet security. (I think it was missile designs, it's been a long time).

13.

Text - nova3482 19.4k points · 1 day ago · edited 1 day ago 2 W & 2 More In 1888, Almon Brown Strowger, an undertaker, noticed he was losing a lot of business to the other undertaker in town. He found out that the other undertaker's wife was a telephone operator and when she intercepted people asking to be connected to Strowger's funeral home, the operator would route the call to her husband's funeral home instead. Three years later, Strowger patented the automatic teller exchange, a system whic

14.

Text - Ohmsy 17.5k points · 1 day ago S James Clerk Maxwell was idolised by Einstein as being the father of modern physics. Not only did he formulate the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation but just for shits and giggles he calculated exactly what Saturns rings were made from using pure mathematics. It wasn't until Voyager 1 and 2 passed by and took photos in the early 80s did we get confirmation that Maxwell was right. He then calculated how to take a colour photograph in 1855. This w

15.

Text - NotDaveBut 16.6k points · 1 day ago Probably the time Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa decided they couldn't wait around any longer and legged it for 10 days across the Andes with no warm clothes, climbing gear, or food except some scraps of their dead friends stuffed into a sock. They finally found someone out in the middle of nowhere, Sergio Catalan, who rode horseback all night and then took a bus to get some help. The mountain climbers had come from the wreckage of a crashed plane th

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Text - Scicst 15.3k points · 1 day ago · edited 1 day ago Henry VIII. Couldn't get his way with the pope, so made he made the Church of England so he could do what he wanted

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Text - anarchocowboyism 15.2k points ·1 day ago Jonas Salk needed human subjects to test his polio vaccine. That's normally a long process and he wanted to make the vaccine available as quick as possible so he just experimented on himself

18.

Text - burntwenis 14.5k points · 1 day ago · edited 1 day ago S it's gotta be Aimo Koivunen- he was a finnish soldier in the second world war when the finns were trying to reclaim land from the soviets. he got separated from his unit mid-war in the middle of nowhere- he was the one tasked to carry the drugs they held in case of injury or tiredness, one of which was pervitin (which was literal meth in a tablet form). instead of just taking one or two, he downed the whole bottle and went on a week

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Text - ChaosTitanium 12.4k points - 1 day ago · edited 1 day ago A man who was a tractor mechanic conpany owner made a good chunk of money and bought a Ferrari. He felt that the car wasn't as good as it could be, and it wasn't very comfortable, so he brought his complaints all the way to Enzo Ferrari, the owner of the company. Enzo insulted the man, saying a mere tractor mechanic didn't know how to make a sports car. That sparked a rivalry that lasts to this day. That man was Ferruccio Lamborghi

20.

Text - utm99 12.0k points · 1 day ago - edited 1 day ago Not a very old story. Manjhi or the mountain man lived in a very remote village of India whose route to nearby was blocked a mountain and hence villagers had to climb it every time. And they had to do that daily to get essential supplies. During one of these trips, his wife fell down the mountain. He loved her alot. He tried first to persuade the govt to do a mountain tunnel project there but to vain. So he went on alone to break the entir

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