Smile of the Day June 21, 2021

Monday June 21, 2021’s Smile of the Day: Tiny Broadwick

On this Day:

In 1913, Tiny Broadwick became the 1st woman to parachute from an airplane. But perhaps the official record is a jump or two behind reality…

Georgia Ann “Tiny” Thompson Broadwick (April 8, 1893 in Oxford, North Carolina – 1978 in California), or Georgia Broadwick, previously known as Georgia Jacobs, and later known as Georgia Brown, was an American pioneering parachutist and the inventor of the ripcord. She was the first woman to jump from an airplane, and the first person to jump from a seaplane.

Born to parents George and Emma Ross on April 8, 1893, Georgia Ann Thompson weighed only 3 pounds. The last of seven daughters, Georgia was given the nickname “Tiny” due to her small size, as she weighed only 85 pounds (39 kg) and was 4 feet 8 inches (1.42 m) tall. At age 12, Tiny Broadwick had married and, at 13, had a daughter, Verla Jacobs (later, Poythress) (1906–1985). Tiny Broadwick was an abandoned mother working in a cotton mill, aged 15, when she saw Charles Broadwick’s World Famous Aeronauts parachute from a hot air balloon and decided to join the travelling troupe, leaving her daughter in the care of her parents. She later became Broadwick’s adopted daughter, to ease travel arrangements, though she has also been referenced as his wife (with her own family later unclear on the relationship). Although she would eventually make her jumps from airplanes, in her early career she jumped from balloons.

Billed as “the doll girl,” Tiny Broadwick began performing aerial skydives and stunts while wearing a “life preserver,” or parachute, designed by her adopted father, making her first jump out of a hot air balloon on December 28, 1908. The skydiving family traveled around and performed at fairs, carnivals, and parks. The appeal of the Broadwick flying troupe, according to Tiny Broadwick, was that “it was a very neat and fast act.”

Among her many other achievements, she was the first woman to parachute from an airplane, which she is sometimes credited with accomplishing over Los Angeles on June 21, 1913, with aviator Glenn L. Martin as the pilot. However, she previously made at least two jumps from Martin’s plane during an exhibition in Chicago’s Grant Park the week of September 16, 1912. These early jumps included a well-publicized jump on January 9, 1914, from a plane built and piloted by Martin, 1,000 feet over Griffith Park in Los Angeles.

In 1914, she demonstrated parachutes to the U.S. Army, which at the time had a small, hazardous fleet of aircraft. The Army, reluctant at first to adopt the parachute, watched as Tiny Broadwick dropped from the sky. On her fourth demonstration jump, the static line became entangled in the tail assembly of the aircraft, so for her next jump she cut the static line short and did not attach it to the plane. Instead, she deployed her chute manually by pulling the shortened, unattached line while in free-fall in what may have been the first planned free-fall jump from an airplane. This demonstrated that pilots could safely escape aircraft by using what was later called a ripcord.

Also in 1914, Broadwick jumped into Lake Michigan, becoming the first woman to parachute into a body of water.

In 1912, Tiny Broadwick married Andrew Olsen, divorced, then, in 1916, married Harry Brown, and stopped parachuting for four years. That marriage also ended in divorce; she retained the name Georgia Brown thereafter. She also severed relations with Charles Broadwick, and considered Broadwick to be her stage name. She returned to jumping again in 1920 for two more years, retiring from jumping in 1922 due to problems with her ankles. She was then said to have made over 1,100 jumps. Although she was not a pilot, she was one of the few female members of the Early Birds of Aviation.

Tiny Broadwick appeared on You Bet Your Life episode 55–07 on November 10, 1955, on To Tell the Truth on March 30, 1964 and on Mysteries at the Museum season 11, episode 33.

In 1964, Tiny Broadwick donated a parachute, handmade by Charles Broadwick of 110 yards of silk, to the Smithsonian Air Museum, the precursor to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

Broadwick died in 1978 and was buried in Sunset Gardens in Henderson, North Carolina (per Wikipedia).

First, a Story:

Tina Broadwick stated that you don’t need a parachute to go skydiving. You only need a parachute to go skydiving twice.

Second, a Song:

What could make jumping out of a perfectly functioning airplane even more funky?  Why, when you are skydiving over the Pyramids, of course!

Jump like a Pharaoh is a yearly event organized for skydivers all over the world who are looking for a good time. It is not common to skydive above the great pyramid of Giza which is why this event is so amazing (per https://www.jumplikeapharaoh.com/#basics).

Black Eyed Peas (also known as The Black Eyed Peas) is an American musical group, consisting of rappers will.i.am, apl.de.ap, Taboo and J. Rey Soul. Originally an alternative hip hop group, they subsequently refashioned themselves as a more marketable pop-rap act. Although the group was founded in Los Angeles in 1995, it was not until the release of their third album, Elephunk, in 2003, that they achieved high record sales.

Black Eyed Peas’ first major hit was the 2003 single “Where Is the Love?” from Elephunk, which topped the charts in 13 countries, including the United Kingdom, where it spent seven weeks at number one and went on to become Britain’s biggest-selling single of 2003. Their fourth album, Monkey Business, was an even bigger worldwide success, and became certified 3× Platinum in the United States. In 2009, the group became one of only 11 artists to have simultaneously held the number-one and number-two spots on the Billboard Hot 100, with their singles “Boom Boom Pow” and “I Gotta Feeling”, which topped the chart for an unprecedented 26 consecutive weeks.

The album The E.N.D. produced a third Hot 100 number-one placement with “Imma Be”, making the group one of few to ever place three number one singles on the chart from the same album, before being followed with “Rock That Body” and “Meet Me Halfway”, which peaked in the top 10 of the Hot 100. “I Gotta Feeling” became the first single to sell more than one million downloads in the United Kingdom. At the 52nd Grammy Awards ceremony, held in January 2010, they won three awards out of six nominations. In November 2010, they released the album The Beginning. In February 2011, the group performed at the Super Bowl XLV halftime show.

Black Eyed Peas have sold an estimated 80 million records, making them one of the best-selling groups of all time. According to Nielsen SoundScan, the group were the second-best-selling artist/group of all time for downloaded tracks, behind Rihanna, with over 42 million sales. They were ranked 12th on Billboard’s 2000s Decade-End Artist of the Decade Chart, and 7th on the Hot 100 Artists of the Decade.

“Pump It” is a 2006 song by The Black Eyed Peas. It was released as the fourth and final single from The Black Eyed Peas’ 2005 album Monkey Business. This song was also remixed for the deluxe edition of the group’s fifth studio album The E.N.D. as “Pump It Harder”. “Pump It” heavily incorporates music from Dick Dale’s 1962 surf version of “Misirlou” (known for being featured in the 1994 Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction) (per Wikipedia).

Here is a Jump Like a Pharaoh video of skydiving over the Pyramids set to “Pump It” by the Black Eyed Peas.  I hope you like it!

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2AOD_I4Ink)

Thought for the Day:

“If at first you don’t succeed, then skydiving definitely isn’t for you.” – Steven Wright

Cheers!

Have a great day!

Dave & Colleen

© 2021 David J. Bilinsky and Colleen E. Bilinsky