Born in 1814, Sax survived more close calls with death than seems possible. Throughout his childhood, he fell from three stories up and hit his head on a rock, he drank a bowl of sulfuric acid, he swallowed a needle, was burned by exploding gunpowder, fell onto a red-hot skillet, nearly drowned in a river, was struck in the head by a falling cobblestone, and several times went to bed surrounded by newly varnished furniture (the suffocating fumes of the fresh varnish could have easily done him in).

It was so exacerbating that his mother reportedly felt that “He’s a child condemned to misfortune; he won’t live.” But live, he did. Adolphe Sax is the creator of the saxophone and his persistent, or lucky, survival forever changed the world of music.