IN 1783, the brothers Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier wowed the crowd gathered at Annonay, France with their invention. A year before, they had discovered that when heated air is collected inside a fabric bag, it causes the bag to rise: They invented the hot air balloon.

The brothers began to experiment with balloon flights. In one of their experiments, they put a rooster, a duck and a sheep in a basket suspended beneath the balloon. The amazing flight was witnessed by King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and by a crowd of not less than 100,000 people.