3. Enrico Forlanini
In another hornet's nest of confusion, Forlanini's name often gets lost when people talk about the invention of the helicopter. Thanks is given to Igor Sikorsky for creating the world's first helicopter in 1940. He and a bunch of other people are given credit for having invented and developed helicopters. But this man here got a hang of these bladed flyers before any of the people on that list. Forlanini invented his version in 1878, and if my Math serves me correct, that's a few dozen years before the Polish inventor. Undeniably, Sikorsky later perfected the creation; but the original claim for the invention still rests with the Italian.
2. Olinto De Pretto
This is where it gets downright ugly. The world lauded Albert Einstein for his contributions to science; especially with the mass-energy equivalence equation. E=MC2. We've all heard it. Under these adulations is buried the corpse of Olinto De Pretto, an Italian industrialist and geologist. A mathematical historian, Umberto Bartocci, rattled the scientific society by claiming that it was De Pretto who first published the equation in 1903, two years before Einstein published his own work. The significance of the equation wasn't understood then, partly because De Pretto didn't take any special efforts to develop it. But the fact remains proven beyond a shred of doubt that it was the Italian who first published this equation. It is possible that Einstein actually knew about De Pretto's work. Einstein gives no credit to the man who practically served him greatness on a silver platter; and if we do the same, we'd be no better than the plagiarist that Einstein was.