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Franz Reichelt, an Austrian-born French tailor, inventor and parachuting pioneer, now sometimes referred to as the Flying Tailor, who is remembered for jumping to his death from the Eiffel Tower while testing a wearable parachute of his own design. 
From July 1910, Reichelt began to develop a "parachute-suit": a suit that was not much more bulky than one normally worn by an aviator, but with the addition of a few rods, a silk canopy and a small amount of rubber that allowed it to fold out...
... to become what Reichelt hoped would be a practical and efficient parachute.
Louis-Sébastien Lenormand in 1783, and balloonist Jean-Pierre Blanchard, had successfully used fixed-canopy parachutes (already "open" before the jump began), and André-Jacques Garnerin had invented a frameless parachute suitable for high altitudes...
... but by 1910 there was still no parachute suitable for use in jumping from a plane at low altitude.
In Reichelt's early tests, dummies equipped with foldable silk "wings", and dropped from the fifth floor, touched down lightly, but converting the prototype into a wearable "suit" proved difficult.
His original design used 6 square metres of material weighing around 70 kg. The leading aeronautic organization, La Ligue Aérienne at the Aéro-Club de France, rejected for testing on the grounds that the canopy was too weak, and attempted to dissuade him from spending time on...
... further development. Reichelt persevered and conducted experimental drops – none of them successful – with dummies from the courtyard of his building at rue Gaillon.
First parachute jump by Louis-Sébastien Lenormand from the tower of the Montpellier observatory in 1783.
In 1911, one Colonel Lalance offered a prize of 10,000 francs for a safety parachute for aviators – double the prize he had offered the year before. The competition was open for three years and stipulated that the parachute must weigh no more than 25 kilograms (55 lb).
Reichelt refined his design, reducing the weight while increasing the surface area of the material to 12 square metres, but tests remained unsuccessful.
Reichelt attributed the failures of his designs at least in part to the short drop distances over which he had conducted his tests, so he was keen to receive permission to experiment from the Eiffel Tower.
Reichelt announced to the press in early February 1912 that he had finally received permission and would shortly conduct an experiment from the Eiffel Tower to prove the value of his invention.
On Sunday, 4 February, at 7:00 a.m., he arrived at the tower by car with two friends. He was already wearing his parachute suit. The weather was cold, with temperatures below 0 °C (32 °F), and there was a stiff breeze blowing across the Champ de Mars.
According to Le Petit Parisien, Reichelt's initial attempt to ascend to the first stage of the tower was blocked by a guard named Gassion, who had witnessed previous unsuccessful dummy drops and feared that Reichelt's attempt would end in disaster.
Despite the guard's resistance, by 8:00 a.m. the matter had been resolved: Reichelt was allowed to mount the tower with his two friends and a cinematographer (another was stationed near the foot of the tower to record the jump from below).
As he climbed the stairs he paused, turned back to the crowd, raised his hand and wished them a cheery "À bientôt". (See you soon). His friends continued to try to talk him out of the jump, but Reichelt was quite determined.
At 8:22 a.m., observed by a crowd of about 30 journalists and curious onlookers, he readied himself – facing towards the Seine – on a stool placed on a restaurant table next to the interior guardrail of the tower's first deck, a little more than 57 metres above the ground.
After adjusting his apparatus with the assistance of his friends and checking the wind direction by throwing a piece of paper taken from a small book, he placed one foot on the guardrail, hesitated for about 40 seconds, then leapt outwards.
