Human cannonball

The first human cannonball, launched in 1877 at the Royal Aquarium in London, was the 17-year-old Rossa Matilda Richter, going by the stage name "Zazel".

Richter's career as a human cannonball ended when she broke her back during an unrelated tightrope act.

This makes the device work more like a catapult, where the cylinder propelling the human stops at the mouth of the cannon.

In a circus performance, gunpowder may be used to provide visual and auditory effects unrelated to the launching mechanism.

Among the latest was that which occurred in Kent, United Kingdom on April 25, 2011, where a human cannonball died as a result of the failure of the safety net.

[3] The human cannonball principle is the subject of a patent application by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, whereby a rail-guided chair driven by compressed air is brought to a sudden stop, propelling the special forces member, police officer or firefighter onto the roof of a tall building.