-
Jacques and Etienne Montgolfier, two paper makers from Annonay, France, designed and built a hot air balloon that carried the first passengers aloft on November 21, 1783. Days later, the chemist Jacques Charles and a companion, Nicolas-Louis Robert, flew in a hydrogen balloon from the Tuileries Palace in Paris. The techniques and technologies of ballooning discovered in the 18th century remain the guiding principles of lighter-than-air flight today.
