Otto Lilienthal

Otto Lilienthal
Otto Lilienthal, c. 1896
Born	Karl Wilhelm Otto Lilienthal (1848-05-23)23 May 1848 Anklam, Province of Pomerania
Died	10 August 1896(1896-08-10) (aged 48) Berlin, Germany
Cause of death	Glider crash
Resting place	Lankwitz Cemetery, Berlin
Nationality	Prussian, German
Occupation	Engineer
Known for	Successful gliding experiments
Spouse(s)	Agnes Fischer (m. 1878–96)
Children	4
Relatives	Gustav Lilienthal, brother

Otto Lilienthal (23 May 1848 – 10 August 1896) was a German pioneer of aviation who became known as the flying man. He was the first person to make well-documented, repeated, successful gliding flights. Newspapers and magazines published photographs of Lilienthal gliding, favorably influencing public and scientific opinion about the possibility of flying machines becoming practical. On August 9, 1896, his glider stalled and he was unable to regain control. Falling from about 15 m (50 ft), he broke his neck and died the next day, 10 August, 1896.

Lilienthal was born on 23 May 1848 in Anklam, Pomerania Province, German kingdom of Prussia. According to his birth certificate, his parents were Carl Gustav, a merchant, and Caroline Wilhemina née Pohle. They belonged to the St. Nikolai evangelical church community in Anklam, where he later attended grammar school, and where he eventually studied the flight of birds with his brother Gustav (1849–1933). Fascinated by the idea of manned flight, Lilienthal and his brother made strap-on wings, but failed in their attempts to fly. He then attended the regional technical school in Potsdam for two years and trained at the Schwarzkopf Company before becoming a professional design engineer. He would later attend the Royal Technical Academy in Berlin.

In 1867, Lilienthal began his experiments on the force of air in earnest, interrupted when he served in the Franco-Prussian War. As a staff engineer in various engineering companies, Lilienthal received his first patent for a mining machine. Five years later he founded his own company to make boilers and steam engines. Lilienthal published his famous book Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation in 1889.

Lilienthal was born to middle-class parents. They had eight children, but only three of them survived infancy: Otto, Gustav, and Marie. The brothers worked together all their lives on technical, social and cultural projects.

On 6 June 1878, Lilienthal married Agnes Fischer, daughter of a deputy. Music brought them together; she was trained in piano and voice while Lilienthal played the French horn and had a good tenor voice. After marriage, they took up residence in Berlin and had four children: Otto, Anna, Fritz and Frida.