1st Person Point of View
First-person accounts of people who were first to do it
Archive
The First Man Cryogenically Preserved
A first-person account detailing the experience of being the first man to undergo cryogenic preservation.
A Letter Concerning Venom
He gave them rattlesnake venom in doses too small to kill. Then larger. Then larger still. One pigeon survived a dose that would have stopped a man's heart. He wrote it down and sent the letter. The Nobel went to someone else fourteen years later.
The Night the Earth Answered
He lit two hundred lamps from twenty-five miles away with no wire between them and the source. The science worked. The infrastructure was never built.
Still Tapping
The rescue was called on October 17th. The tapping resumed at 9:41 that morning. The shaft was sealed on October 18th. When it was reopened in 1884, the fragments found with him indicated he had survived at least six days. The last legible entry is dated October 19th.
The Summit He Could No Longer See
He reached the top eight years before the Long Expedition. He came back snow-blind. His account described the world beneath the clouds, which the geographers said was impossible. The mountain still carries the name of the man who failed to reach what Shale had already stood on.
The Man Who Carried the Sun
He rode ahead of the column across the Llano Estacado carrying a single live ember in a clay vessel. On the third night, the fire spoke. The animals would not approach. The people would not touch the vessel. He carried it alive for twelve days.