• Illustration Showing the First Manned Free Ascent in a Balloon
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    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.

  • Illustration Showing the First Manned Free Ascent in a Balloon

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NASM 80-2357

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Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum

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Smithsonian Institution

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