![]() ![]() Throughout the summer and fall of 1783 the crowds gathering to witness the ascents grew ever larger. Robert made the first free flight aboard a hydrogen balloon from the Jardin des Tuileries.Ī wave of excitement swept across Paris as the gaily decorated balloons rose, one after another, over the skyline of the city. Less than two weeks later, on December 1, 1783, J.A. Pilatre de Rozier, a scientific experimenter, and François Laurent, the marquis D'Arlandes, became the first human beings to make a free flight on November 21. Not to be outdone, the Montgolfiers sent the first living creatures (a sheep, a duck and a rooster) aloft from Versailles on September 19. Charles flew the first small hydrogen balloon from the Champs de Mars, near the present site of the Eiffel Tower, on August 27, 1783. Impatient for the Montgolfiers to demonstrate their balloon in Paris, Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond, a pioneering geologist and member of the Académie Royale, sold tickets to a promised ascension and turned the money over to Jacques Alexandre-César Charles (1746-1823), a chemical experimenter whom he had selected to handle the design, construction and launch of a balloon. Joseph led the way, building and flying his first small hot air balloons late in 1782, before enlisting his brother in the enterprise. Members of a family that had been manufacturing paper in the Ardèche region of France for generations, the Montgolfiers were inspired by recent discoveries relating to the composition of the atmosphere. The Montgolfier brothers, Joseph-Michel (August 26, 1740-June 26, 1810) and Jacques Etienne (JanuAugust 2, 1799), launched the air age when they flew a hot air balloon from the town square of Annonay, France, on June 4, 1783. The invention of the balloon struck the men and women of the late 18th century like a thunderbolt. The NASM Collection of Objects Related to Early Ballooning ![]() We invite you to share at least a small taste of the excitement experienced by those who witness the birth of the air age. We are pleased to provide visitors to our web site with access to an even broader range of images and objects from this period. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles International Airport can see several display cases filled with the riches of this collection. Thanks to the generosity of several generations of donors, the National Air and Space Museum maintains one of the world's great collections of objects and images documenting and celebrating the invention and early history of the balloon. Hair and clothing styles, jewelry, snuffboxes, wallpaper, chandeliers, bird cages, fans, clocks, chairs, armoires, hats, and other items, were designed with balloon motifs. ![]() The balloon sparked new fashion trends and inspired new fads and products. ![]() "Among all our circle of friends," one observer noted, "at all our meals, in the antechambers of our lovely women, as in the academic schools, all one hears is talk of experiments, atmospheric air, inflammable gas, flying cars, journeys in the sky." Single sheet prints illustrating the great events and personalities in the early history of ballooning were produced and sold across Europe. In an age when men and women could fly, what other wonders might they achieve. Enormous crowds gathered in Paris to watch one balloon after another rise above the city rooftops, carrying the first human beings into the air in the closing months of 1783.The excitement quickly spread to other European cities where the first generation of aeronauts demonstrated the wonder of flight. ![]()
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