Every day in the comments section of our videos,
we see many of you hungry attention seekers shout 'First!'
...even though about 50 people beat you to it.
But did you know this behavior also extends
to the worlds of silence and explanation?
We all know Christopher Columbus wasn't the first European to visit America,
but what about the summit of Mt. Everest?
What about the first person to discover evolution?
And who was really the first man to enter space?
Let's find out in our list of 7 famous firsts that might be frauds.
#7: The First Man in Space
On the 12th of April, 1961, the Soviet Union proudly announced
to the world that Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin
had become the first human to reach outer space.
He took off a nobody, and returned a global hero.
But reports at the time from the British communist newspaper, The Daily Worker,
immediately cast suspicion on the Soviet triumph.
They, and many other Western media outlets, reported that a successful flight carrying a different cosmonaut
had actually taken place of Friday, the 7th,
but that the pilot had suffered such severe injuries after landing off course,
that the Russians kept this secret, in pursuit of a more perfect story to go down in the history books.
The Daily Worker's close ties to the Kremlin meant that they were a reliable source of information.
And we know the Soviets covered up many space - fairing accidents, thanks to the glasnost period,
when many old, confidential records were declassified.
But was one file left unopened?
Was this secret just to big to expose?
Those who believe so claim Vladimir Ilyushin
was really the first man to visit space.
But if that's true, how did he keep it drunken ma from spilling the beans all these years?
#6: Thomas Edison's... Everything
Thomas Edison was an American inventor and business man most famous for inventing the light bulb.
Hold on! That's not right. Let's do that again...
Thomas Edison was an American thief and business man most famous for stealing the idea of a lightbulb
like a big mean jerk.
There we go! Much better.
The man who actually came up with the idea of an incandescent light using metal filaments
was British chemist Humphry Davy in 1802.
Davy refused to patent his work to allow it to be improved by other inventors.
And gradually, as more and more people refined the idea,
Canadians Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans came up with a commercially viable model,
which they patented, and sold to Edison in 1879.
Edison is often erroneously described as having invented many things,
including the electric chair, movie cameras,
record players, wax paper, the telegraph, power generators,
and x - ray photos.
But all of these were either invented by his employees,
or ideas he stole, and then patented.
Basically, he was good at buying fancy new things,
which makes us all inventors, in some small way...
Oh! And also, he electrocuted an elephant once.
But that was just for fun...
#5: Penicillin
Scottish pharmacologist, Sir Alexander Fleming,
won a Nobel Prize in 1945 for his discovery of the antibiotic properties of a substance found within mold.
But was this deserved?
There's no doubt that the development of viable antibiotics, for which Fleming was responsible, has saved
hundreds of millions of lives since its creation.
But he was, by no means, the first to realize penicillin's antibacterial abilities.
French physician, Ernest Duchesne, noted in 1897
the way penicillin glaucum mold reacted with E. coli bacteria.
But he failed to make the necessary connections, and later died of tuberculosis,
which he'd never have been able to cure himself of using penicillin.
If only he'd hit the books a little bit harder...
Several other physicians elaborate on Dechesne's work in the intervening years,
but it was only when Fleming accidentally left a petri dish open
that he notice a connection himself.
However, despite the work of all these fancy Europeans in lab coats,
it was actually the Bedouins tribe of North Africa who first noticed the healing properties of mold.
Ernest Dechesne was inspired after studying Bodouins stable hands,
using mold from wet saddles the treat saddle soars.
Anyone else think these stable boys should've received that Noble Prize?
Because after plucking up the courage to rub moldy leather into a Bedouins tribesman's wounds
the science work looks like a breeze.
#4: The First Telephone.
Did you think Edison was the only guy who made a name for himself ripping off other's ideas?
Nope! That honor also extends to one Alexander Graham Bell,
who plagiarized the idea of the telephone
from Italian inventor, Antonio Meucci.
Meucci demonstrated a working telephone to New Yorkers in 1860,
16 years before Bell,
but Meucci couldn't afford the $250 patent fee.
Having already shown his designs to the Western Union Telegraph Company,
Meucci assumed his ideas had been rejected,
until he saw Alexander Graham Bell had patented them for himself
without so much as a phone call to thank him.
Meucci sued Bell, but died before a verdict was reached.
And so while historians knew of his work,
history is likely to ignore the name Antonio Meucci
just like you ignore all those calls from your mom everyday.
You awful people. (Yes, you)
#3: The Theory of Evolution
If there are any creationists watching the channel,
this is the part mommy and daddy warned you about watching!
So feel free to switch to the video about how Jesus invented the platypus one night when he was drunk.
In his 1859 book, On the Origin of Species,
Charles Darwin posed a revolutionary theory,
which stated that all organisms of a sufficient population experienced a struggle for existence,
where those with more favorable traits and adaptions would be the ones to survive,
and this is called natural selection, or the survival of the fittest.
But whist Darwin was the source of this particular concept,
evolution itself is and age old idea, which even Darwin's grandfather,
Erasmus, wrote a poem about.
Erasmus Darwin, also a renown naturalist,
was never able to articulate exactly how life evolved,
but he did hold the belief that we all came from a common ancestor.
And his ideas built upon those posed by ancient Greek thinkers, such as Aristotle,
Anaximander, and Empedocles.
But Charles Darwin's work was the first to make a research backed breakthrough
which linked the building of mutations over many generations
to the development of a stronger species.
So it's unfair to say he didn't make a major contribution to evolution.
It's more accurate to describe On the Origin of Species as evolution's definitive cover version.
Which means Darwin's sampling makes him sound like something of a 19th century Skrillex.
#2: The First to Everest's Summit.
In 1999, a research expedition to Mt. Everest was undertaken with the goal of proving once and for all
whether the world's highest peak was concurred 29 years before history claims.
In 1924, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine
attempted to scale Everest in an attempt that would cost them their lives.
But nobody know whether they had been successful before succumbing to the harsh mountain environment.
It is believed that Irvine was the climb's photographer,
and in his procession would be a camera containing a photo of their successful attempt.
Several teams have attempted to locate this evidence,
And whereas Mallory's body was found in 1999,
Irvine's is still waiting for us somewhere on the mountain,
with what could be the greatest selfie of all time.
#1: The Secret Flying Indian
Ohio's Wright Brothers, Orville and Wilbur,
are considered to be the inventors, builders, and pilots of the world's first successful airplane,
having demonstrated their Kitty Hawk aircraft on December 17th, 1903.
But many people had already investigated the possibility of fixed wing flight before the Wright Brothers.
Including famous elephant murderer Thomas Edison.
And whilst none were believe to be successful,
some claim that Indian aeronautical scholar, Shivkar Bapuji Talpade,
actually undertook the world's first flight in 1895.
His craft was called the Marutsakha, which translated as 'Friend of Wind.'
And an audience including famous judges, politicians, and many of his students
claim to see the craft fly to a height of 1500 feet (152.4 meters),
8 years before the Wright Brothers.
Research since has shown that Marutsakha, with a few adjustments, could've been a viable aircraft.
But unless someone was operating an old - timey video camera, we'll probably have the proof we need
to give the famous flying Indian his credit.
So those will be the top 7 famous firsts that might be frauds.
But who will be the first person to ask where I am in the comments below?
(despite the fact that I did the voice over this time)
The answer is he lives in my basement, chained naked to a radiator.
(I'm not chained to a radiator)
But while you're waiting for him (or me) to escape,
why not check out this video on the top 5 weirdest experiments of all time?
Because some of them are even stranger than electrocuting an elephant...