The idea of luck seems to be a blanket term for things we just cannot explain, such as surviving fatal situations or discovering game-changing inventions. Some people just seem to have more luck than others, yet we don’t know why. Here are some luckiest people in the world of history with unique experiences in terms of luck in different fields.
- TEDDY ROOSEVELT
Teddy Roosevelt (Source: History)
Teddy Roosevelt, a former president of the United States, had a reputation as a tenacious warrior, which may have some merit because he managed to escape an up-close assassination attempt and proceed with his day. Roosevelt was one of the luckiest people in the world when he was shot in the chest on October 14, 1912, as he was leaving a Milwaukee hotel for a campaign stop by New York City saloonkeeper John Schrank. The 50-page speech and eyeglass case in Roosevelt’s coat pocket had stopped Schrank’s bullet, which was still in his rib. It takes more than that to kill a bull moose, Roosevelt said as he delivered a 90-minute speech to his audience, declining medical attention.
- VESNA VULOVIC
VESNA VULOVIC (Source: The Independent)
Vesna Vulovic, a flight attendant from Serbia, was booked in error to work on January 26, 1972. To welcome passengers on a trip from Copenhagen back to Yugoslavia, Vulovic got to work. She was one of the luckiest people in the world as she is the lone survivor of a plane explosion that had killed 27 people an hour earlier, but she was lying in the middle of an airplane wreckage in Czechoslovakia. Vulovic supposedly dropped 33,300 feet during the crash landing while being trapped inside the fuselage of the aircraft. Vulovic spent 16 months in the hospital after the incident, where she was first paralyzed and had numerous fractures and broken bones, but she later recovered totally and had no memory of the fall. Vulovic was honored by the Guinness Book of World Records for the “Highest Fall Survived Without a Parachute,” however further investigations suggest that the crash’s specifics were changed for propaganda purposes.
3. ADOLPHE SAX
Statue of ADOLPHE SAX (Source: Adolphe Sax)
The reedy, name-brand instrument of Belgian musician and inventor Adolphe Sax. Sax is well-known for his contributions to musical history, but few people are aware of how frequently he almost avoided death. Sax banged his head on a rock after falling “height of three floors” as a toddler, and at first, it was thought he had died. He had ingested a needle and a bowl of sulfuric acid by the time he was 3 years old. Sax also suffered severe burns from a gunpowder explosion and a cast iron frying pan. Later, thick varnish fumes nearly caused him to suffocate while he slept. Sax’s childhood accidents also include being nearly drowned in a river and being hit by falling cobblestones. Marie-Joseph Sax, Sax’s mother, undoubtedly observed the pattern. She once proclaimed, “He’s a child condemned to misfortune; he won’t live.” (She was mistaken; he lived up to 79.)
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ROY SULLIVAN
Roy Sullivan holding his hat, damaged by a lightning bolt. (Source: All That’s Interesting)
One in 12,000 chances are that you will be struck by lightning in your lifetime. Roy Sullivan, a park ranger, was one of the luckiest people in the world as he survived seven lightning strikes over the period of 35 years, so this certainly didn’t provide much solace. When Sullivan raced through a storm in Shenandoah National Park in 1942, he had his first lightning encounter. Thereafter, there were more lightning strikes in 1969, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1976, and 1977. Sadly, Sullivan’s death in 1983 at the age of 71 was caused by a self-inflicted gunshot wound rather than lightning.
- LUDGER SYLBARIS
Photo of Ludger Sylbaris (left), Mount Pelée eruption (right) – Photo credit: Rykoff Collection (Source: gettyimages)
Ludger Sylbaris became well-known for his sideshow accounts of escaping a volcanic eruption on the island of Martinique. Sylbaris is one of the luckiest people in the world did survive Mount Pelée’s eruption in 1902, and it was because he was in jail. However, some of his embellishments (suggesting he was the only survivor of the eruption) weren’t completely genuine. In the town of Saint-Pierre, Sylbaris was imprisoned in a stone cell due to his reputation for drinking and fighting. The town was destroyed and 30,000 people are thought to have died when Mt. Pelée erupted the morning after his arrest. Sylbaris was protected from flying debris and much of the heat in his partially underground detention cell, but when rescue workers found him four days later, he still had severe burns. Sylbaris used his experience of a near-death situation to gain popularity by touring with the Barnum and Bailey Circus as “The Man Who Lived Through Doomsday.”
- CHARLES XIV JOHN OF SWEDEN
CHARLES XIV JOHN OF SWEDEN (Source: Reddit)
In 1763, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, throughout his extensive military career and his tumultuous relationship with Napoleon, Bernadotte oversaw military campaigns in Germany and Italy. While there, he maintained control over his men and forbade robbery and stealing, earning Bernadotte the respect of his enemies; but, following defeats in his career caused him to lose the faith of Parisian politicians in the early 1800s. A sort of star search for an heir was conducted in Sweden in 1810 as a result of a sick and childless King Charles XIII, and Bernadotte was offered the position of Sweden’s crown prince. In addition to his military background, Bernadotte was chosen for his willingness to treat Swedish soldiers with respect and decency during his military engagements.
- ALAN THOMPSON
Leonard Thompson, the first person treated with insulin. (Source: Brighter)
By injecting the 14-year-old Leonard Thompson with insulin, doctors risked their lives to save him in 1922. One of the luckiest people in the world was a young diabetic who was only 65 pounds because he was on a starvation diet (at the time, this was the only way to cure diabetes), and he was going in and out of a coma. Although insulin was an experimental medication that had not yet been used on people, his parents took a risk and let the physicians inject Thompson with it nevertheless since they were desperate for a solution. The youngster experienced an adverse response after receiving the first round of injections, but after 12 days of experimentation, purer insulin was obtained. Thompson quickly recovered.
- GEORGE WASHINGTON
George Washington (Source: History extra)
The Revolutionary War was won in part because of Washington’s famous crossing of the Delaware River, but it could have—and indeed, should have—been prevented. Washington made a surprise river crossing of 5400 men against the Hessian forces on Christmas Eve 1776. The plan was successful, but since the Hessians were aware of it beforehand, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise at all. Col. Johann Rall, the Hessian commander, was informed about an impending river crossing by two Patriot deserters the day before, but he discounted the story as unlikely, perhaps because of all the false alarms. Additionally, a red-coat spy in Washington’s camp reported the attack, but once more, Rall thought that if Patriot troops ever attempted, they would be easily repelled.
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CONSTANTIN FAHLBERG
Constantin Fahlberg (Source: Fact republic)
Constantin Fahlberg was the first chemist to recognize saccharin as a pleasant and palatable byproduct of chemistry that might be substituted for sugar. According to legend, after spending time in his lab, Fahlberg ate a roll that was sweet tasting due to saccharin residue on his palm. He hastened returned to his laboratory to taste-test each of his tools, including the beakers, vials, and other containers, to identify the source of the sweetness. Fahlberg fired his lab partner shortly after making his discovery and went on to submit patents for a widely used artificial sweetener that would later revolutionize the food business.
- HARRISON FORD
Harrison Ford praises ‘other people’ for making him shine on screen (Source: Fox News)
Hollywood legend Harrison Ford experienced serendipity that would last a lifetime, launching his acting career. Ford was under contract to play a character in movies with Columbia and Universal, but his primary job was as a carpenter. Ford said this during a Reddit AMA (even though he also had a role in Lucas’s American Graffiti, which came out four years earlier). “I had helped George Lucas audition other actors for the principal parts, and with no expectation or indication that I might be considered for the part of Han,” Ford added. Even though Ford admitted, “I was quite surprised when I was offered the part.” Still, Lucas was impressed, and the role successfully began Ford’s career.
- JOAN GINTHER
JOAN GINTHER (Sourrce: One Lotto)
Joan Ginther, a mathematician from Texas who now resides in Las Vegas, is frequently referred to as one of the luckiest people in the world because of her four separate multimillion-dollar jackpot wins. Between 1993 and 2010, Ginther’s victories, all of which took place in her native state, brought in $20 million. However, because Ginther has a background in statistics and holds a Ph.D. from Stanford, it’s assumed that rather than being merely lucky, she understands how to play the odds.
- CHARLES LINDBERGH
CHARLES LINDBERGH (Source: Britannica)
There’s a reason why they called him “Lucky Lindy”! Charles Lindbergh is most remembered for his solo transatlantic flight in 1927, however, even though this famous journey was a success, Lindberg is one of the luckiest people in the world, because prior his flying experience includes four crashes: two in 1924 and two in 1926. He jumped out of each falling plane safely, emphasizing the value of a functioning chute. The parachute has a proverb in the military that goes, “If you need it and don’t have it, you’ll never need it again! That almost perfectly captures its relevance to aviation,’ he wrote.
- ROBERT BOGUCKI
ROBERT BOGUCKI in a newspaper (Source: Amazing Facts Oceania)
Robert Bogucki, an American tourist and former firefighter in Alaska, vanished into Western Australia’s Great Sandy Desert in July 1999, sparking a manhunt. By the time the second search team located him (the first had been abandoned more than two weeks earlier), Bogucki had wandered over 250 miles through the desert for 43 days while consuming vegetation and drinking groundwater that had been gathered. When he was found, Bogucki informed his rescuers that he was prepared to return home: “Yeah, well. Bogucki claimed he wasn’t sure why he went off into the desert (where winter’s temperatures regularly reach upwards of 90 degrees—quite a change from the Alaskan weather he was used to), but he speculated that it might have been to appease his spiritual self.
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