The first manned flight in a hot air balloon takes place over Paris - November 21st, 1783

On this day in 1783, at a public demonstration in Paris, two volunteers embarked on the first free ascent in a hot air balloon.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that gives you a bird's eye view of
history every day of the week. I'm Gay Blusier, and
in this episode we're talking about a landmark day in aviation,

(00:21):
the one when human beings took to the skies for
the first time with the help of a balloon and
a lot of hot air. The day was November one, three.
At a public demonstration in Paris, two volunteers embarked on

(00:42):
the first free ascent in a hot air balloon. The
fearless passengers were French aristocrat Francois Laurent Darlande and physicist
Jean Francois Pilatre de Rosier. The pair took off in
a cloth balloon and traveled roughly five and a half
miles through this enter of Paris to the suburbs. They

(01:02):
were in the air for about twenty five minutes, completely
untethered from the ground below. The age old dream of
human flight had finally become a reality. The historic event
was organized by Jacques at the End and Joseph Michele Mongolfier,
a pair of brothers who ran a successful paper business

(01:23):
in southern France. They were inspired to invent the world's
first successful hot air balloon after observing how heated air
caused paper in fabric to rise. According to some historians,
that realization came in sevent two when Joseph Michelle was
watching his wife's laundry dry over a fire. He noticed

(01:45):
how her undergarments would billow and rise as the fire
grew hotter. That led him to wonder whether a big
enough sack of air could lift a human being in
the same way. He told his younger brother about the idea,
and together they began experimenting with lighter than air devices.
After a bit of trial and error, the Mongolfieri's succeeded

(02:08):
in creating their first functional hot air balloon, something they
described as quote a cloud and a paper bag. The
brothers gave the first public demonstration of their invention on
June fourth, three. It was staged in the city of
Annone in southern France, not far from the Mongolfieri's paper

(02:28):
making business. Although the paper and sackcloth balloon was theoretically
capable of carrying passengers, the brothers played it safe and
sent it up unmanned in a testament of their smart design,
The five pound balloon rose nearly six thousand feet in
the air and remained aloft for ten minutes. It was

(02:49):
an impressive achievement, especially since the brothers were amateur scientists
at best. For example, they actually thought it was the
smoke from the fire that made the balloon rise, rather
than air heated by the fire. That's why when the
Mongolfieri's launched their balloon that summer, they made sure to
build the biggest smokiest bonfire they could. They chucked in

(03:13):
piles of wool, rabbit skins, straw, even old shoes. The
resulting fire was way smokier than it needed to be,
but it's still got the job done. The brothers misunderstanding
didn't hinder their future successes either. After the unmanned flight
and annon, a word of their inventions spread across the country,

(03:34):
and arrangements were quickly made for another demonstration, this time
in the courtyard of the Palace of Versailles in Paris.
By the day of that second flight, September nine, the
Mongolfiers had perfected their shoe burning technique and felt confident
enough to send up a few passengers. However, the effects

(03:54):
of altitude on humans were still unknown, so no one
was exactly eager to volunteer. King Louis the sixteenth was
one of the one hundred and thirty thousand or so
spectators in attendants that day. He offered to provide two
condemned prisoners to use in the test flight, but thankfully
the Mongolfier's were able to talk and out of it.

(04:16):
In lieu of human passengers, the brothers suspended a little
cage beneath the balloon and loaded it with a sheep,
a rooster, and a duck. The crowd watched with delight
as the enormous blue balloon lifted the animals high into
the air and traveled two miles before touching down again
with all its passengers unharmed. Remarkably, the decision to send

(04:38):
barnyard animals on a balloon flight over Paris wasn't as
silly as it sounds. In terms of physiology. Sheep have
many similarities to humans and are susceptible to many of
the same medical conditions, so if the animal had been
hurt by its exposure to high altitudes, then there was
a strong chance a human would be as well as

(04:59):
for the duck. In the rooster. They were included in
the experiment as controls a bird that was capable of
flying at high altitudes and a bird that was not.
The altitudes effect on those animals, or in this case,
the lack of effect, provided further proof that a human
could endure the same conditions. Speaking of which, the Mongolfier's

(05:21):
managed to get a human airborne for the first time.
On October fifteenth, seventeen eighty three, Jacques himself became the
first human to ascend into the sky when he made
a tethered flight from the yard of his workshop. Later
that same day, local physicist and eager volunteer Jean Francois
Pilatre de Rosier became the second person to fly when

(05:44):
he also made a brief test flight while tethered to
the end of an eighty foot rope. In the weeks
that followed, de Rosier and his pilot, Francois Laurent d'arlanday,
made several more tethered test flights to get the hang
of controlling the balloon him. Then, on November one, seventy three,
they were finally ready for the real thing. The men

(06:07):
appeared before a large excited crowd on the grounds of
a royal hunting lodge on the western edge of Paris.
The daring aeroknots took their places on a circular wooden
platform attached to the bottom of the balloon. Then they
began feeding the fire by stuffing handfuls of wool and
straw through openings on either side of the balloons skirt.

(06:28):
As the air inside grew hotter, the balloon gradually began
to rise into the air, and the first humans to
experience free flight rose with it. American statesman Benjamin Franklin
was among the many who witnessed the balloons historic takeoff.
He later recalled the event in his journal, writing quote,

(06:48):
we observed it lift off in the most majestic manner.
When it reached around two hundred and fifty feet in altitude,
the intrepid voyagers lowered their hats to salute the spectators.
We could not help feeling a certain mixture of awe
and admiration. De Rosier and Darlande flew the balloon without

(07:10):
incident for nearly half an hour, but had to cut
the trip short when burning ash set fire to the
balloon's fabric. Still, even with a hasty landing, the flight
was a resounding success. The Mongolfier brothers were honored by
the French Academie des Science for their achievement, and the
pilots earned eternal bragging rights as the first human beings

(07:33):
to fly. Unfortunately, De Rosier also earned a far less
prestigious title. Less than two years later, on June fifteenth,
seventeen eighty five, the physicist turned daredevil was attempting to
fly across the English Channel and a balloon filled with
the deadly combination of hot air and hydrogen. De Rosier

(07:55):
died in the resulting explosion, making him the first flight
fatality in human history. Other aeronauts learned from the tragedy
and began making improvements to the design, controls and fuel
source of their balloons. In no time at all, people
were taking to the skies and droves, some for thrills,
some for leisure, and many for science. Atmospheric chemists especially

(08:20):
made full use of the practical applications of hot air balloons.
They used them in all kinds of experiments, measuring dew
points and magnetic fields, and testing the properties of various gases.
In that way, humans gradually expanded our understanding of the
miles and miles of air above our heads. That new

(08:40):
perspective led to a firmer grasp of air currents, geography,
weather patterns, and aerodynamics considerations. They would be crucial to
the later development of airplanes. For now, though, we'll let
them Mongolfieri's enjoy their moment and save the right brothers
in their story for another day. I'm Gabe Louisier, and

(09:03):
hopefully you now know a little more about history today
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(09:27):
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