X-Nico

3 unusual facts about Montgolfier brothers


Gustavus Katterfelto

He claimed to have launched the first hot air balloon fifteen years before the Montgolfier brothers, and claimed to be the greatest natural philosopher since Isaac Newton.

La Línea de la Concepción Bullring

In its early days the ring saw a ballooning show by the Montgolfier brothers in 1894.

Leonard Knijff

Some of the plates are maps, in the Siennese "map perspective," a feat of imagination in a world that had not conceived even of a balloon ascension.


Nicolas-Marie Gatteaux

A student of Delorme and Gros, he designed a large number of medals, largely referring to public events, such as the death of Louis XV, the coronation of Louis XVI, the birth of the Dauphin, the invention of the hot air balloon by the Montgolfier brothers, the voyage of Lapeyrouse, the Federation of the Départements of France, the Abolition of Privileges, and Moreau's crossing of the Rhine in year VIII.

Sky lantern

Frei Bartolomeu de Gusmão, using a large scale version of these lanterns, was the first man to fly a Hot air balloon in August 8, 1709, in the hall of the Casa da Índia in Lisbon, Portugal, long before the Montgolfier brothers.


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