Irony Isn't What You Think

Ladies and gents, boys and girls, species of animals that can somehow read, I welcome you back to the blog that gave you all brief moments of intellectual, spiritual, and idiotic enlightenment throughout the last few years. Ever think of irony as that Alanis Morrisette song (where nothing is ironic, which doesn't make it ironic at all)? Well, then you have awful taste in music. That's not what irony really is though. This blog, however, will feature bits of irony. But I digress. You've never invented or made anything important. If you had, you'd have too much money to read this blog. So I'm going to combine my favorite literary device with my favorite topic: irony and history. More accurately, historical irony. Or, even more accurately, The 6 Most Ironic Examples of Historical Irony.

6. Wan Hu
When: Sometime during the Chinese Ming Dynasty or around 1500 for those who have never taken advanced Chinese history.
The Situation: Wan Hu died becoming the world's first "astronaut" on the "spaceship" that he made.
The Irony: Wan Hu's "spaceship" was actually just a chair with 50 rockets attached to it. According to legend, he sat in the chair while 50 men each lit a rocket and ran away because, as legend has it, rockets usually are dangerous in the hands of uneducated Chinese military personnel. So it blew up and Wan Hu "disappeared" (read: blew up into hundreds of little pieces). Some say that this story is just a legend since its not included in Chinese historical records. If that's true, the accurate version of China's entire history will be included below:
(Insert historical records here)

5. Perillos of Athens
When: The 6th Century BC in Ancient Greece
The Situation: Perillos was commissioned to build a torture device, now known as the "Brazen Bull", by Phalaris, a tyrant of a suburban Greek village. (Story inspired the movie "Gigli", with Ben Affleck starring as the torture device)
The Irony: When Perillos was showing off the finished product to his employer, his employer thought it'd be wise to give it a test drive. With Perillos inside. (Brazen Bull: torture device in which the victim is locked inside a metal container over hot flames until burnt to death. When the victim screams, it sounds like a bull bellowing because of the metal.) Perillos didn't die inside the Brazen Bull, but Phalaris threw him off a cliff because he was good like that. In another twisting bit of ironic fate, Phalaris was overthrown and thrown in the Brazen Bull, where he died. The guy who invented it was killed because of it and the guy who wanted it built was killed inside of it. And you wonder where the word "perilous" came from? Boom, word origin master right here.

4. Otto Lilenthal
When: In 19th Century Germany, known in Germany as "The Unification Times When We Came Close to Smiling."
The Situation: Lilenthal was a renowned German flight aviator guy. He was the first to successfully glide in the air for far distances. He tried again.
The Irony: Lilenthal was the first man to get a patent for the hang glider. He inspired the Wright Brothers and their attempt at flight. He also, unintentionally, went on to inspire that "the guy died in a hang gliding accident" joke from "Wedding Crashers." On what he thought would be a pioneering flight, he pioneered himself to the ground from about 60ft, crushing his spine and killing him the next day. His final words were "Small sacrifices must be made!" (unknown if the exclamation point was included) Otto just flew too close to the sun. Or was walking on air. Or had his head up in the clouds. Or was crushed by failure. Alright, that's enough wordplay.

3. Fritz Haber
When: Right in between World War I and World War II in Germany, right in the middle of that failure sandwich.
The Situation: Fritz was a Nobel Prize winning chemist for his work synthesizing ammonia, but I'm thinking the Nobel committee would take it back if they figured he'd become known as the "Father of Chemical Warfare."
The Irony: For all his work with chemicals, Fritz Haber invented the poison gas Zyklon B which was to be used as an insecticide, but later used as that "gas in the concentration camps." Because of his work, Haber's wife committed suicide after he first oversaw his gas being used for the army. Then, members of Haber's extended family were killed by the gas in concentration camps. After World War II, presumably because "The German Comedy Hour" radio program that he loved was canceled, Haber committed suicide. After his death, he was incorrectly associated with the creation of meth but that's just because people said "fuck it, let's just pile it on this guy." A little known fact about him was that he was actualyl the guy who created the "What's the Deal with....?" jokes but they didn't catch on since there were no airline peanuts to make fun of. (Newman!)

2. Alfred Nobel
When: In 19th Century Sweden, where "nooobody knows" (said in generic spooky voice) what happened because, well, it's cold there damnit.
The Situation: You know Nobel as the guy who the Nobel prize is named after. But do you know his real claim to fame? He made a fortune making dynamite. Well, that's right. The Nobel Peace Prize is named after the guy who invented dynamite. However, he did invent it to create safer mining and the like. So we'll give him some credit. But not much.
The Irony: Although he did create dynamite as a safer alternative than gunpowder and the like for mining and other endeavors, dynamite soon was taken up as a weapon in the Franco-Prussian War (I know what your thinking "The French FOUGHT?!?" Well, don't worry. They lost this one too) So his invention that was supposed to save lives ended up taking more than it saved. Nobel, however, was so rich through the creation of dynamite that he all the funds he left for his Nobel Foundation have been used to create the various Nobel Prizes and recognize significant scientific advances, like Al Gore' Powerpoint Presentation and Bono's....well, whatever it is that Bono does. Besides singing, of course.

1. Thomas Midgley, Jr.
When: During the early-mid 20th century on the East Coast of the You Ese.
The Situation: Midgley was a mechanical engineer/chemist who added lead to gasoline for General Motors to prevent engines from internally combusting, a practice which was soon adopted by all American car companies.
The Irony: The addition of lead into gasoline released a dangerous amount of lead in the atmosphere, causing health problems all over the world. He even got lead poisoning himself and had to take a long vacation. After that vacation, he took part in the GM Chemical Company to produce it, but 8 team members died of overexposure and caused GM and Standard Oil to create the Ethyl Gasoline Company to produce lead, using an even more dangerous temperature. Workers quickly were overcome with insanity, hallucinations, poisoning, and death. To demonstrate its safety, Midgley poured lead all over his hands and breathed it in through his nose for 60 seconds straight. The plant was shut down by the state of New Jersey and if you get shut down by New Jersey for health violations, then you know something might be a little wrong. He also created Freon, a CFC that damaged the atmosphere heavily, and received a few awards. He eventually died after getting polio, probably naturally (sarcasm alert), and strangling himself in the strings holding up his limbs. Midgley was quoted as "having the single greatest affect on the atmosphere more than any single organism on Earth." His nickname is the adoringly put together "The Man who Destroyed the Atmosphere." Which is funny because, you know, he kinda did.

Well I'm glad to be back after my short yet noticeable absence from the blog. I'll be back more frequently from now, I promise. Hopefully I've cleared up your definition of irony and you got a little chuckle out of some the events that took place on this blog, even though most of them were kinda tragic. I won't take up too much more of your time, since I'm sure you have better things to do. And if you don't, you should really get a hobby. Until I see your lovely faces again, vá parafuso se!