Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Dark Cast Network. Welcome to the Dark Side of Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
The files are located on the second floor, at the
end of a long hallway. Fluorescent lights above flicker on
and off. Open the door on the right in the
bottom door of a file cabinet. There it is a
folder labeled with three words that are poured onto stories.
(00:32):
Stories of history, stories of people, Stories of death. I'm
Luke Poweling and this is famous.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Last words, here's.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
A fun fact that I never knew before I started
researching this season's stories. People used to be really into ballooning,
long distance ballooning, high atmosphere ballooning, all kinds of ballooning.
And it is in this fascinating world of entertainment that
we find Sophie Blanchard, the first professional female balloonist, and yes,
that is the correct term for someone who balloons. Unfortunately,
(01:16):
Sophie was also the first woman to be killed in
an aviation accident, but we'll get to that in a bed.
Sophie was born March twenty fifth, seventeen seventy eight in
southwestern France. Not much is known about her early years,
and things only really start to get filled in when
she marries Jean Pierre Blanchard, the world's first professional balloonist.
And since we've already thrown around the term a lot
(01:37):
in the past thirty seconds, what exactly is a professional balloonist. Well,
the fad known as balloon mania seriously has its own
Wikipedia page. Began at seventeen eighty three with the first
flight of a balloon filled with hot air. It was
in the seventeen seventies that the concept of filling a
balloon with lighter than air gas was discovered, and then
someone came up with the idea of flying it. And
(01:58):
the concept of seeing a human being rise into the
sky and be able to somewhat control their travel and
descent really captured the public's imagination, well for most people.
When an early balloon flight land in the village of Genesie,
it terrified villagers who thought the balloon was well who
knows what they thought. But back to balloon mania, people
(02:18):
started decorating everything with balloon imagery and clothing all beyond
was designed with puffy sleeves and rounded skirts to mimic
the look of a balloon, and that is where Jean
Pierre Blanchard enters the picture. He made his first successful
flight in seventeen eighty four, and in seventeen eighty five
he successfully crossed the English Channel on a balloon. In
the subsequent years, he made the first record of balloon
(02:40):
flights in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Poland. His flight
in Philadelphia was witnessed by President George Washington and future
Presidents John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe.
When Jean Pierre married Sophie, he did so only after
abandoning his first wife and their four children. Wife number
one one would soon die in abject poverty when he started.
(03:04):
Ballooning was a hard business to make work, and the
new couple found themselves teetering on poverty. However, they believed
that the concept of first female balloonist might be the
key to their success. Sophie would not be your first
choice when picking out an aviation pioneer. She was terrified
to ride in carriages, hated loud noises, and was easily startled. However,
(03:27):
for some inexplicable reason, all those fears seemed to just
go away when she was in the air. Though, a
crash landing on her eleventh flight that injured Jean Pierre
was so traumatic it left her mute for some time afterwards.
No matter what her publicity said, Sophie was actually not
the first female balloonist, but she seized upon the name,
and when Jean Pierre died after falling out of a
(03:48):
balloon in eighteen oh nine, she set out to make
a name for herself in the field. Her specialty was
night flights. Parachuting was a big thing at the time
as well well, so as part of her show, she
would drop dogs out of her balloon, each equipped with
a parachute for them to land safely on the ground.
She would also place fireworks and parachutes and drop them
(04:10):
off so that the sky around her would have been
lit up with colorful lights. Money was tight when Jean
Pierre died, so Sophie switched to a hydrogen filled balloon
because it was a cheaper gas and because of her weight,
she didn't need as much. She had a basket attached
to the balloon, but it really wasn't much bigger than
a chair. Hydrogen also meant she didn't have to worry
(04:30):
about keeping a fire lit to keep the balloon aloft,
which was helpful because, along with balloon mania, there was
also something called balloon riots, which was when crowds would
attack balloonists and destroy their balloons when things didn't work
out and the balloon didn't take flight. Sophie became Napoleon's
favorite balloonist after the previous guy went up to celebrate
Napoleon's coronation and due to heavy winds, ended up landing
(04:53):
in Rome. Sophie took to the skies to celebrate Napoleon's
second marriage, and when the couple's son was born in
eighteen eleven, Sophie flew over Paris again dropping leaflets announcing
the good news, and when Louis the eighteenth returned to
Paris after being restored to the throne in eighteen fourteen,
he declared Sophie to be the official aeronaut of the restoration.
(05:17):
In Germany, her flight outdrew the opening night performance of
composer Karl Maria von Weber's new opera Servanna. Sophie didn't
limit her act to just parachuting dogs and fireworks. She
was also known for her highest sense. During a demonstration
in Rome, she rose twelve thousand feet into the air and,
according to her passed out for a few minutes due
(05:38):
to the high altitude, she was trapped in a hailstorm
over Vencenne's and spent fourteen and a half hours aloft
a flight. In turn found the air so called icicles
formed on her hands. On July sixth, eighteen nineteen, Sophie
took to the skies above Trivoli Gardens in Paris. She
was a regular performer there, making his ends twice a
week when she was in town, still doing the parachuting
(06:01):
fireworks effect, though many people told her not to they
thought it was too dangerous. Well, others just wanted to
see the colors and hear the blasts going off. Around
ten thirty pm, Sophie took off, wearing a white dress
and a white hat with an ostrich feather and carrying
a white flag. It was windy that night and the
balloon had some trouble lifting off, but once it was
(06:23):
finally afloat, Sophie began the show, waving the flag and
setting off what was known as Bengal fire basically flares.
Mere moments later, the balloon was on fire. Sophie tried
to descend, but the wind caught the balloon and started
pushing it away from the gardens and the landing spot.
Sophie was able to somewhat control the descent, and spectator
(06:44):
said Sophie looked calm and in control of the balloon
as it came down. Moments later, the balloon was on fire.
Sophie tried to descend, but the wind had caught the
balloon and started pushing it away from Trivoli Gardens and
the landing spot. Sophie was able to sum somewhat controlled
the descent, and some spectators later said Sophie looked calm
and in control as the balloon came down. In fact,
(07:07):
the descent was so controlled some people thought this was
part of the show and applauded and ooed and awed
over the image of a flaming balloon coming down out
of the sky. The balloon eventually hit a roof, and
had Sophie just landed there, she likely would have survived. However,
the force of the landing and the lurch of the
chair she was sitting in led to Sophie being thrown
(07:27):
over the edge of the roof and landing in the
street below, breaking her neck Instantly after the crash, the
owners of Trivali Gardens took up a collection for Sophie's children,
and people took to the streets to do the same
when they realized that Sophie had no children. The money
was used to pay for her headstone. Sophie is buried
at the Pierre la Chan Cemetery in Paris, alongside people
(07:50):
like Oscar Wilde, Edith Pioff, and Jim Morrison. Her headstone
is engraved with Victim of her art and her intrepability.
It was topped with an ingres of a balloon in flames,
not something I'm sure Sophie would really want to be
reminded of, but no matter. Julis Vern mentioned Sophie in
his book Five Weeks in the Balloon, and Dostoyevsky references
(08:11):
her in The Gambler, and Charles Dickens commented the jug
often goes to the well, but is pretty sure to
get cracked at last, and it seems Sophie knew this.
She knew that these aerial attempts were dangerous and likely
spurred on by her nervous disposition, wanted to be done
with them, but given the financial state she was in,
(08:31):
she kept doing them because well money. When she took
her seat on that fateful night with spectators imploring her
to do it or not to do it. She seemed
to have made up her mind about the whole ballooning
thing when she looked at her helpers and said what
turned out to beat her final words, Let's go. This
will be for the last time. Famous Last Words is
(09:14):
a production of the Professional production company. It is written
and narrated by Luke Pohling That's Me. It is produced
by Heidie Quist and myself. Our assistant producer is Sabrina Thompson.
You can find the show on Instagram and Facebook under
Famous last Words Pod, and on our website you can
find full transcripts, credits, and much more. Famous last Words
(09:36):
Pod dot com.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Darkcast Network the light shine's brightest on our indie podcasts.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Welcome to Creepy Tapas, wh we do the opposite of
deep dives and bring you tiny tastes of terror connected
by a common ingredient, true stories to haunt and chill
you and the pop culture they inspired, or at least
the movies and books that remind us of them. Join
us as we descend into darkness, beginning with the lighter
side of our weekly topic and wrapping with a full
(10:18):
dark nose star's account of terror madness, murder and more.
It's creepy top as, y'all.
Dark Cast Network. Welcome to the Dark Side of Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
The files are located on the second floor, at the
end of a long hallway. Fluorescent lights above flicker on
and off. Open the door on the right in the
bottom door of a file cabinet. There it is a
folder labeled with three words that are poured onto stories.
(00:32):
Stories of history, stories of people, Stories of death. I'm
Luke Poweling and this is famous.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Last words, here's.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
A fun fact that I never knew before I started
researching this season's stories. People used to be really into ballooning,
long distance ballooning, high atmosphere ballooning, all kinds of ballooning.
And it is in this fascinating world of entertainment that
we find Sophie Blanchard, the first professional female balloonist, and yes,
that is the correct term for someone who balloons. Unfortunately,
(01:16):
Sophie was also the first woman to be killed in
an aviation accident, but we'll get to that in a bed.
Sophie was born March twenty fifth, seventeen seventy eight in
southwestern France. Not much is known about her early years,
and things only really start to get filled in when
she marries Jean Pierre Blanchard, the world's first professional balloonist.
And since we've already thrown around the term a lot
(01:37):
in the past thirty seconds, what exactly is a professional balloonist. Well,
the fad known as balloon mania seriously has its own
Wikipedia page. Began at seventeen eighty three with the first
flight of a balloon filled with hot air. It was
in the seventeen seventies that the concept of filling a
balloon with lighter than air gas was discovered, and then
someone came up with the idea of flying it. And
(01:58):
the concept of seeing a human being rise into the
sky and be able to somewhat control their travel and
descent really captured the public's imagination, well for most people.
When an early balloon flight land in the village of Genesie,
it terrified villagers who thought the balloon was well who
knows what they thought. But back to balloon mania, people
(02:18):
started decorating everything with balloon imagery and clothing all beyond
was designed with puffy sleeves and rounded skirts to mimic
the look of a balloon, and that is where Jean
Pierre Blanchard enters the picture. He made his first successful
flight in seventeen eighty four, and in seventeen eighty five
he successfully crossed the English Channel on a balloon. In
the subsequent years, he made the first record of balloon
(02:40):
flights in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Poland. His flight
in Philadelphia was witnessed by President George Washington and future
Presidents John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe.
When Jean Pierre married Sophie, he did so only after
abandoning his first wife and their four children. Wife number
one one would soon die in abject poverty when he started.
(03:04):
Ballooning was a hard business to make work, and the
new couple found themselves teetering on poverty. However, they believed
that the concept of first female balloonist might be the
key to their success. Sophie would not be your first
choice when picking out an aviation pioneer. She was terrified
to ride in carriages, hated loud noises, and was easily startled. However,
(03:27):
for some inexplicable reason, all those fears seemed to just
go away when she was in the air. Though, a
crash landing on her eleventh flight that injured Jean Pierre
was so traumatic it left her mute for some time afterwards.
No matter what her publicity said, Sophie was actually not
the first female balloonist, but she seized upon the name,
and when Jean Pierre died after falling out of a
(03:48):
balloon in eighteen oh nine, she set out to make
a name for herself in the field. Her specialty was
night flights. Parachuting was a big thing at the time
as well well, so as part of her show, she
would drop dogs out of her balloon, each equipped with
a parachute for them to land safely on the ground.
She would also place fireworks and parachutes and drop them
(04:10):
off so that the sky around her would have been
lit up with colorful lights. Money was tight when Jean
Pierre died, so Sophie switched to a hydrogen filled balloon
because it was a cheaper gas and because of her weight,
she didn't need as much. She had a basket attached
to the balloon, but it really wasn't much bigger than
a chair. Hydrogen also meant she didn't have to worry
(04:30):
about keeping a fire lit to keep the balloon aloft,
which was helpful because, along with balloon mania, there was
also something called balloon riots, which was when crowds would
attack balloonists and destroy their balloons when things didn't work
out and the balloon didn't take flight. Sophie became Napoleon's
favorite balloonist after the previous guy went up to celebrate
Napoleon's coronation and due to heavy winds, ended up landing
(04:53):
in Rome. Sophie took to the skies to celebrate Napoleon's
second marriage, and when the couple's son was born in
eighteen eleven, Sophie flew over Paris again dropping leaflets announcing
the good news, and when Louis the eighteenth returned to
Paris after being restored to the throne in eighteen fourteen,
he declared Sophie to be the official aeronaut of the restoration.
(05:17):
In Germany, her flight outdrew the opening night performance of
composer Karl Maria von Weber's new opera Servanna. Sophie didn't
limit her act to just parachuting dogs and fireworks. She
was also known for her highest sense. During a demonstration
in Rome, she rose twelve thousand feet into the air and,
according to her passed out for a few minutes due
(05:38):
to the high altitude, she was trapped in a hailstorm
over Vencenne's and spent fourteen and a half hours aloft
a flight. In turn found the air so called icicles
formed on her hands. On July sixth, eighteen nineteen, Sophie
took to the skies above Trivoli Gardens in Paris. She
was a regular performer there, making his ends twice a
week when she was in town, still doing the parachuting
(06:01):
fireworks effect, though many people told her not to they
thought it was too dangerous. Well, others just wanted to
see the colors and hear the blasts going off. Around
ten thirty pm, Sophie took off, wearing a white dress
and a white hat with an ostrich feather and carrying
a white flag. It was windy that night and the
balloon had some trouble lifting off, but once it was
(06:23):
finally afloat, Sophie began the show, waving the flag and
setting off what was known as Bengal fire basically flares.
Mere moments later, the balloon was on fire. Sophie tried
to descend, but the wind caught the balloon and started
pushing it away from the gardens and the landing spot.
Sophie was able to somewhat control the descent, and spectator
(06:44):
said Sophie looked calm and in control of the balloon
as it came down. Moments later, the balloon was on fire.
Sophie tried to descend, but the wind had caught the
balloon and started pushing it away from Trivoli Gardens and
the landing spot. Sophie was able to sum somewhat controlled
the descent, and some spectators later said Sophie looked calm
and in control as the balloon came down. In fact,
(07:07):
the descent was so controlled some people thought this was
part of the show and applauded and ooed and awed
over the image of a flaming balloon coming down out
of the sky. The balloon eventually hit a roof, and
had Sophie just landed there, she likely would have survived. However,
the force of the landing and the lurch of the
chair she was sitting in led to Sophie being thrown
(07:27):
over the edge of the roof and landing in the
street below, breaking her neck Instantly after the crash, the
owners of Trivali Gardens took up a collection for Sophie's children,
and people took to the streets to do the same
when they realized that Sophie had no children. The money
was used to pay for her headstone. Sophie is buried
at the Pierre la Chan Cemetery in Paris, alongside people
(07:50):
like Oscar Wilde, Edith Pioff, and Jim Morrison. Her headstone
is engraved with Victim of her art and her intrepability.
It was topped with an ingres of a balloon in flames,
not something I'm sure Sophie would really want to be
reminded of, but no matter. Julis Vern mentioned Sophie in
his book Five Weeks in the Balloon, and Dostoyevsky references
(08:11):
her in The Gambler, and Charles Dickens commented the jug
often goes to the well, but is pretty sure to
get cracked at last, and it seems Sophie knew this.
She knew that these aerial attempts were dangerous and likely
spurred on by her nervous disposition, wanted to be done
with them, but given the financial state she was in,
(08:31):
she kept doing them because well money. When she took
her seat on that fateful night with spectators imploring her
to do it or not to do it. She seemed
to have made up her mind about the whole ballooning
thing when she looked at her helpers and said what
turned out to beat her final words, Let's go. This
will be for the last time. Famous Last Words is
(09:14):
a production of the Professional production company. It is written
and narrated by Luke Pohling That's Me. It is produced
by Heidie Quist and myself. Our assistant producer is Sabrina Thompson.
You can find the show on Instagram and Facebook under
Famous last Words Pod, and on our website you can
find full transcripts, credits, and much more. Famous last Words
(09:36):
Pod dot com.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Darkcast Network the light shine's brightest on our indie podcasts.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Welcome to Creepy Tapas, wh we do the opposite of
deep dives and bring you tiny tastes of terror connected
by a common ingredient, true stories to haunt and chill
you and the pop culture they inspired, or at least
the movies and books that remind us of them. Join
us as we descend into darkness, beginning with the lighter
side of our weekly topic and wrapping with a full
(10:18):
dark nose star's account of terror madness, murder and more.
It's creepy top as, y'all.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.