First Balloon flight and the Montgolfier brothers

You are standing in the Bois de Boulogne. Look up and imagine that here, on 21 November 1783, the sky was opened by an incredible sight. For the very first time in history, a manned hot-air balloon took a free flight. On board were Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d’Arlandes, two brave men who turned the dream of the Montgolfier brothers into reality.

The balloon, made of silk and paper, was heated by an open flame and floated for nearly 25 minutes over Paris before safely landing outside the city walls. The crowd was speechless. Until that moment, no one thought it possible to leave the earth without wings or machines. The Montgolfier brothers, two papermakers from Annonay, made this possible with a simple idea: hot air is lighter than cold. Their discovery became the starting point of aviation and sparked the imagination of all Europe.