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Artificial Clouds and Inflammable Air: The Science and Spectacle of the First Balloon Flights, 1783 | Science History Institute

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The first balloons, both hot-air and hydrogen powered, drew spectacular crowds and set off a craze—balloonomania! Joseph and Étienne Montgolfier were two of sixteen siblings from a prosperous papermaking family in southern France. Jacques-Alexandre-César Charles was an urbane Parisian man of science, well-known for his public physics lectures. In the 1780s the Montgolfier brothers and Charles engaged in a spectacular race to levitate into the sky using gas-powered balloons. Their “artificial clouds,” as one writer described the flying globes, would enthrall the French capital and set off a craze for all things balloon. The story of the first balloons starts with a classic “Eureka!” moment. As Joseph Montgolfier (1740–1810) later related, he was sitting by a fireplace one day in 1782, thinking about the fortress-like island of Gibraltar, then held by Spain. Watching the sparks and smoke go up the flue, he pondered putting hot air to military use. Steam power had been used since the begi

Artificial Clouds and Inflammable Air: The Science and Spectacle of the First Balloon Flights, 1783 | Science History Institute About Magazine Podcasts Events Museum Hours: Wednesday–Saturday, 10am–5pm Stories Magazine Distillations magazine Unexpected Stories from Science’s Past Arts & Culture Early Science & Alchemy Environment & Nature Health & Medicine Inventions & Discoveries People & Politics June 24, 2009 Inventions & Discoveries Artificial Clouds and Inflammable Air: The Science and Spectacle of the First Balloon Flights, 1783 The first balloons, both hot-air and hydrogen powered, drew

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