For its first two centuries, New York—like almost all big cities—suffered along with inadequate and unhealthful water supplies. The city finally authorized a water system in 1774, but didn’t get its first drink for nearly seventy years.
Horace Goldin wanted to keep people from stealing the magic trick he invented, so he took out a patent. It worked, but ultimately it cost him a magician’s greatest asset—secrecy.
Jack Northrop’s lifelong ambition was to build an airplane that would be all wing, with no fuselage or tail. He came tantalizingly close, but eventually his failure broke him.
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