Alexander Fedorovich Mozhaysky was an admiral in the Imperial Russian Navy, aviation pioneer, researcher and designer of heavierthanair craft.
Mozhaysky was born in Rochensalm, in the Grand Duchy of Finland , southern Finland, then part of the Russian Empire. His father was an admiral in the Imperial Russian Navy, and Mozhaysky graduated from the Sea Cadet Corps in 1841. He spent the next seven years on voyages in the Baltic Sea and the White Sea on various vessels, and was commissioned as a lieutenant in 1849. He served with the Baltic Fleet from 1850 to 1852. In 1853, he was selected as a member of Vice Admiral Yevfimy Putyatins expedition to the Far East. In August 1853, he demonstrated a working model of a steam engine to various Japanese dignitaries at Nagasaki, from which Japanese inventor Tanaka Hisashige was later able to reverse engineer a Japanese version. In December 1854, he was shipwrecked at Heda, Shizuoka when the frigate Diana was sunk the 1854 AnseiTkai earthquake. Mozhaysky assisted in the construction of the schooner Heda in 1855, which enabled the Russian delegation negotiating the Treaty of Shimoda to ret
Source: Wikipedia