Centuries ago, somebody decided that jumping from a great height and trying to land without being injured would be a good idea.

And in a few cases, it actually worked, although in many more cases, it didn't. Once humans actually figure out how to fly they

realize that there might actually be a use for this stunt. Learn more about

parachutes, parachuting, and why this particular technology was developed on this episode Greater Everything Everywhere Daily Family, I would like to start this episode by formally thanking all of the people throughout history who flung themselves off buildings and cliffs in the name of science and developing the technology that we know today as parachutes.

There are certain things that we as a species know that must have been very difficult to learn.

For example, how do we know which plants and

mushrooms are poisonous and which ones are safe? That required a lot of trial and

error over thousands of years and there must have been a lot of people that how shall I put

it took one for the team. Parachooting I think falls into that camp. Today

parachuting is pretty much down to a science, but it's something that doesn't allow for a whole lot of trial and error.

If you fling yourself from a great height, you only get to fail once.

So with that being said, one of the earliest... to fail once.

So with that being said, one of the earliest and probably apocryphal descriptions

of an early parachute dates back 4,000 years.

A historian from the Chinese Han Dynasty wrote of the legendary emperor Shun, who was a young

man was the target of a plot by his father to kill him. His father was planning to kill him

by getting him to the roof of a building and then setting the building on fire.

Shun managed to escape by holding two large conical bamboo hats and jumping off the building.

It was said that the hats acted like the wings of a

bird and brought him safely to the ground. There is no indication as to how high

the building was. The next reference to something akin to a parachute was in the year 852 in Cordoba, Spain.

The great Islamic polymath, Abbus Iben Fernas, created a large cloak that was stiffened by wood and used to break his fall

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