History
The zip-wire is not a recent invention. It has been used as a transportation method in some mountainous countries. In some remote areas in China, zip lines serve the purposes of bridges across rivers. Referred to as "an inclined strong", one appears in The Invisible Man by H.G Wells, published in 1897, as part of a Whit-Monday fair.
In 1739, Robert Cadman, a steeplejack and ropeslider, died when descending from Shrewsbury's St Mary’s Church when his rope snapped.
Alberto Santos-Dumont used a direct ancestor of the zip-line in the spring of 1906 for a method of testing various characteristics of his 14bis pioneer era canard biplane, before it ever flew under its own power later that year.
In past days in the Australian outback, flying foxes were occasionally used for delivering food, cigarettes or tools to people working on the other side of an obstacle such as a gully or river. Australian troops have used them to deliver food, mail and even ammunition to forward positions in several conflicts.
Read more about this topic: Zip-line
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Indeed, the Englishman’s history of New England commences only when it ceases to be New France.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The greatest horrors in the history of mankind are not due to the ambition of the Napoleons or the vengeance of the Agamemnons, but to the doctrinaire philosophers. The theories of the sentimentalist Rousseau inspired the integrity of the passionless Robespierre. The cold-blooded calculations of Karl Marx led to the judicial and business-like operations of the Cheka.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)
“The whole history of civilisation is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)