Alexandru Ciurcu

Alexandru N. Ciurcu (29 January 1854, Șercaia – 22 January 1922, Bucharest) was a Romanian inventor and publisher, known for his invention with the French journalist Just Buisson [fr; ro] of a reaction engine.

It used rocket propulsion and was briefly used to power a boat, demonstrated on 13 August 1886.

Ciurcu survived by swimming ashore, but at first was accused of murder.

A militant for the national cause of the Romanians in the Habsburg empire and editor of some Romanian magazines, he was imprisoned by the Habsburg authorities in 1916, when Romania entered World War I, and died in prison.

[3] Alexandru Ciurcu attended high school in Brașov, taking his baccalaureate in 1872.