That Time a Bus Jumped Tower Bridge

Bright Side

Back in 1952, Albert Gunter pulled off one heck of a stunt by jumping his bus over Tower Bridge in London. I mean, talk about nerve! He revved up that double-decker and sent it flying over the open drawbridge, with passengers on board and everything. It was like a scene straight out of an action movie! The whole city was buzzing about it afterward, and Gunter became a bit of a local legend. Can you imagine being on that ride? Talk about an adrenaline rush!   Credit:  St Pancras Nose: Warden, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:St_Pancras_Nose.jpg  Animation is created by Bright Side.  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com   Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV   Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en   Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me

Transcript

00:00This isn't a scene from a movie.

00:02A double-decker bus once jumped the gap while London's Tower Bridge was up.

00:08Let's go back to the day it happened.

00:10The 30th of December, 1952.

00:13It was a normal day for the number 78 bus driver, Albert Gunter.

00:18He was driving the bus over Tower Bridge toward Shoreditch.

00:21Then he noticed that the bridge was opening and his bus was escalating with a bascule.

00:27What do I mean by bascule?

00:29The two levered sections of the bridge are named this way.

00:32They rise up to an angle of 83 degrees and each of them weighs over 1,100 tons.

00:39The bus was going at just 12 miles per hour when the bascule started to rise.

00:44The timing was right and the other side of the bascule wasn't raised too much.

00:49That's how Gunter managed to jump the bus from three to four feet high above.

00:54Thirteen people were injured, but all passengers stayed alive.

01:00How come the bridge was lifted?

01:02Back then, a watchman rang a warning bell and closed the gates before the bridge had to be opened.

01:08Yet, on that particular day, they somehow forgot to do so.

01:13That's why the bus moved further onto the bridge, thinking it was okay.

01:18Why were they lifting the sections in the first place?

01:21Because there was a ship that needed to pass under.

01:24The bus driver, Albert Gunter, said that the traffic light was also green

01:28as he drove across the bridge.

01:30He said he'd had two options, either to stop the bus and hope someone would notice the bus,

01:36or to jump the gap.

01:38If he stopped the bus, he could slip back, perhaps fall into the river.

01:43Big congrats to this hero without a cape for making the right decision in a split second.

01:51Not just a double-decker, but a plane also has a memory of passing through the tower bridge.

01:58In 1912, a plane had to fly between the bascules and the walkway.

02:03The vertical distance between the upper walkways and the deck of the drawbridge is 141 feet.

02:10The pilot, Francis McLean, was in a modified float plane that could fit in between.

02:16This is how he managed to fly successfully.

02:20He was the first person to fly under the walkways.

02:23For many of us, it's super risky and frightening.

02:27But for him, it was like a piece of cake.

02:30He told the press,

02:31It isn't so risky as it appears,

02:33for the arches of the bridges are tremendous things when you get close to them.

02:38This fellow was a civil engineer, astronomer, pioneering photographer, and aviator.

02:44Yeah, sounds like he was the perfect combo for this kind of action.

02:48Why did he decide to do this?

02:50Thing was, he had an appointment in town.

02:53It all happened on a Saturday morning.

02:56McLean thought, why wouldn't he go there with his float plane?

03:00He took off at 6 a.m.

03:01He was at Westminster Pier on a Port of London launch at around 8.30 a.m.

03:08Want to hear a story from a prankster who lived in early 1800s London?

03:13Theodore Hook and his friend were hanging out as usual.

03:17Then they made a bet.

03:19Hook bet that he could turn any ordinary house into the most talked-about address within a week.

03:25The power of a hoax is proven by him.

03:28They picked a random house in the city.

03:30An ordinary woman named Mrs. Tottingham was living there.

03:34Hook wrote numerous letters to many people, from lawyers to cake makers.

03:39After a week, guests such as the Governor of the Bank of England and the Lord Mayor of London

03:45showed up at the door because they had invitations.

03:49Not just people, but also the delivery Hook secretly ordered came along too.

03:54The heart of London soon turned to a standstill.

03:59Picture this.

04:01You woke at 5 a.m. after hearing the doorbell.

04:04You see a stranger at the doorstep.

04:06He says that he's here to sweep the chimneys.

04:09You didn't call anyone for this kind of service, so you sent the man back.

04:13A few moments later, someone else knocks on the door.

04:17Another sweeper tells you that he has been summoned.

04:20Poor Mrs. Tottingham.

04:22Her maid had to send 20 more men back.

04:25Unfortunately, the prank didn't end there.

04:28Things like large coal deliveries and wedding cakes were also addressed to her house.

04:34As these deliveries and workers accumulated at the door,

04:38other people such as doctors and priests approached the house,

04:42saying that they were called to minister to someone in the house.

04:46Hook and his friend rented a small room nearby to watch where their bet ended up.

04:51People did show up and made Hook win the bet.

04:56Rick Buckley is another person who likes practical jokes.

05:01But he is also an artist.

05:03In 1997, he modeled his nose and stuck it on various places in London with glue.

05:10Pardon?

05:11Yes, his aim was to protest against CCTV.

05:16Such a creative mixture of prank and art.

05:19Initially, he glued the noses around 35 landmarks across London.

05:25Amongst all, the seven noses of Soho are famous.

05:29I guess he doesn't like people poking their noses into other people's businesses.

05:35It's time for free association!

05:38From the noses placed in random places in the city,

05:41it's time to jump into older times,

05:43when people used toxic cosmetics on their faces for the sake of beauty.

05:48I'll refer to a trendsetter of her time, Queen Elizabeth I.

05:53She had a major influence on fashion.

05:56Not just women's clothes,

05:57but also the style of men got influenced by her choice of wardrobe.

06:02Here I'm going to talk more about her iconic white look.

06:05This look is achieved by a white foundation called Ceruse.

06:10It's made by mixing white lead and vinegar.

06:13In that era, people also wanted to bleach freckles and treat blemishes.

06:17These types of cosmetics included ingredients like sulfur, turpentine, and mercury.

06:23As you can guess, these ingredients are harmful.

06:27They end up leaving the skin gray and shriveled.

06:30I'm not even going to mention other health issues magic cosmetics caused.

06:37Michael Holmes is a pro skydiver and canopy parachutist.

06:42No, he isn't a relative of Sherlock Holmes.

06:44He's on my list because he survived against all odds.

06:49One day, he was instructing new skydivers.

06:52It started as a routine day for him.

06:54He was on the plane with 16 students.

06:57They were going to jump from 15,000 feet.

07:00The process was simple on paper.

07:02They would allow a free fall for about a minute,

07:05and then open their canopies at 5,000 feet.

07:10That day, things didn't go as planned.

07:13Michael released the parachute, and it didn't open.

07:17He spent seconds trying to get rid of the main parachute

07:20so that he could open the reserve one.

07:22As he was struggling, he was also continuously spinning.

07:26He described the free fall as,

07:29I was spinning so fast that I was nearly passing out from the J-force.

07:34He was in a similar situation before,

07:37when he had to unsnag the fine cords between the harness and the canopy.

07:42He knew that he had a backup and that this system was safe,

07:45so he didn't panic.

07:47Well, at least at the beginning.

07:49This time, he couldn't lose the main canopy.

07:52As he was around 4,000 feet,

07:54he decided to pull the second parachute, and nothing happened.

08:00He was trying to stay calm and find a way to land safely.

08:04The lines were still snagged, so the main canopy was still there.

08:08He couldn't reach the small knife.

08:10He had to cut the lines.

08:12What was even worse than spinning was that time was ticking.

08:16He was running out of options while moving closer to the ground

08:19at a speed of around 80 miles per hour.

08:23He had a head camera recording the incident the whole time.

08:27After he tried all the options and nothing worked,

08:31he waved goodbye to the lens.

08:33Luckily, his story didn't end like this.

08:37Remember what I said at the beginning?

08:38This fellow miraculously survived.

08:42He landed on a blackberry bush around two miles above Lake Taupo in New Zealand.

08:48He didn't have a severe injury.

08:50That means a person can fall from the sky and survive if the conditions are right.

08:57What would you do if you were in that situation?

09:02That's it for today.

09:03So hey, if you pacified your curiosity,

09:05then give the video a like and share it with your friends.

09:08Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!

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