Henry Woodhouse (forger)

Henry Woodhouse (1884–1970) was an Italian-born US aviation writer, magazine publisher, investor, and collector.

Henry Woodhouse was born Mario Terenzio Enrico Casalegno on June 24, 1884, in Turin, Italy. According to his own later account, Woodhouse's father died before he finished school. The young Woodhouse had to settle his father's debts using unspecified means. He later pursued academics in France, Britain, Switzerland and Belgium and studied languages, economics, sociology and aeronautics. The schools he attended were never mentioned by name.

In 1904, Casalengo moved to USA and got a job in a restaurant kitchen in Troy, NY. He got into a fight with the head chef and killed him with a kitchen knife. Casalengo maintained that the other man had accidentally impaled himself on the knife. He was arrested and sentenced to 4 years in prison and sent to Clinton Prison in Dannemora, New York. He was released in 1909.

Soon after 1909 he submitted his naturalization papers. He began his career as an aviation writer under the nom de plume Henry Woodhouse (which he soon legally adopted). He was a contributor to such publications as Collier's Weekly, McClures, Metropolitan, The Independant, "World's Work, the New York Times, etc. He quickly started to gain fame as an expert on the subject of aviation around the world. In his articles Woodhouse prophesied the development and extensive use of aeroplanes by the US military, and later coordinated uses for all branches of the service in WWI. He also accurately forecast the importance of aviation to the transportation industry, and postal service. In addition to his magazine writing, Woodhouse also authored many of the first authoritative books on aviation including Textbook of Naval Aeronautics (1917), Textbook of Military Aeronautics (1917), Textbook of Applied Aeronautic Engineering (1917), Textbook of Aerial Laws (1917)' Aircraft of All Nations (1917), and High-altitude Flying in Relation to Exploration (1919).

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