Štefan Banič, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Štefan Banič

Slovak inventor

Date of Birth: 23-Nov-1870

Place of Birth: Smolenice, Trnava Region, Slovakia

Date of Death: 02-Jan-1941

Profession: inventor

Zodiac Sign: Sagittarius

Štefan Banic (Slovak pronunciation: ['?c?fam 'ba?it?]; 23 November 1870 – 2 January 1941) was a Slovak inventor who patented an early parachute design.Born in Neštich (Hungarian: Jánostelek), Austria-Hungary (now part of Smolenice, Slovakia), Banic immigrated to the United States and worked as a coal miner in Greenville, Pennsylvania.
After witnessing a plane crash in 1912, Banic constructed a prototype of a parachute in 1913 and was granted US patent, No.
1,108,484.The design which was radically different from others - it was a kind of umbrella attached to the body - but it is sometimes claimed that he successfully tested it in Washington, D.C.
jumping first from a 15-storey building and subsequently from an airplane in 1914.
He donated his patent to the U.S.
Army - but there is no evidence that it was ever used. After World War I Banic returned to Czechoslovakia where he helped to explore the Driny karst cave in the foothills of the Little Carpathian Mountains, close to his hometown of Smolenice.