Man flies over Paris. In Paris, French inventor Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent, Marquis d’Arlandes, make the first human flight in a hot air balloon, covering five miles in 25 minutes. The fabric balloon was made by French brothers Jacques Etienne and Joseph Michel Montgolfier, paper manufacturers, who believed that smoke, not hot air, made the balloon rise. The balloon’s burner was fueled with damp straw and rags: Pilâtre and d’Arlandes took off from Château de la Muette, climbing to 3,000 feet before returning safely to earth. The previous September, the Montgolfiers had raised a balloon carrying a sheep, a rooster, and a duck in preparation for the human mission. The animals remained aloft for eight minutes and landed unharmed two miles from their starting point. And on October 15, Etienne Montgolfier flew with a 25-meter cable that kept the balloon connected to the ground, making Rozier and Laurent’s flight the first human free flight.
