On July 31 in 1944 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry flew a Lockheed Lightning P-38 on a morning reconnaissance mission, despite being injured and nearly ten years over the pilot age limit. It was the last day he was seen alive. A bracelet bearing his name was later found by a fisherman offshore between Marseille and Cassis, which led to discovery of the wreckage of his plane.

Saint-Exupéry was an unfortunate pilot with many dangerous flying accidents over his career. One in particular was during a raid, an attempt to set a speed record from Paris to Hanoï, Indochine and back to Paris. Winning would have meant 150K Francs. Instead Saint-Exupéry crashed in the Sahara desert.

Besides being a pilot of adventure he also was an avid writer and had studied drawing in a Paris art school. In 1942 he wrote The Little Prince, which has been translated into more than 250 languages and is one of the most well-known books in the world. Saint-Exupéry never received any of its royalties.

It brings to mind the rash of people now posting videos and asking their fans to pay to view/support their adventures.

Imagine if Saint-Exupéry had taken a video selfie of his crash and survival in the Sahara desert and posted it straight to a sharing site, asking for funds…instead of writing a literary work of genius and seeing none of its success.