Oct 21, 2007, 11:48 PM
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Today is Monday, Oct. 22, the 295th day of 2007. There are 70 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History: On this date:
On Oct. 22, in 1797, French balloonist Andre-Jacques Garnerin made the first parachute descent, landing safely from a height of about 3,000 feet over Paris.
Today is Monday, Oct. 22, the 295th day of 2007. There are 70 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History: On this date:
On Oct. 22, in 1797, French balloonist Andre-Jacques Garnerin made the first parachute descent
No dig on you, Z Man, but I don't believe that to be true. First parachute decent from an aircraft? Yes, but not first decent...that had been going on for some time with the Chinese, long before.
HW (Of course we should not forget what Wikipedia reports for Oct. 22: "4004 BC - The universe is created. This is according to the 17th-century chronology of the history of the world formulated by James Ussher the Anglican Archbishop of Armagh.")
(This post was edited by howardwhite on Oct 22, 2007, 8:41 AM)
Zing, just change it to "first parachute decent from a flying machine" and you'll be spot on!
Yes, the ancient Chinese used small parachutes mainly for aerobatic displays but as such they weren't really life saving devices. However, there is written evidence that some particularly nasty Asian warlords used larger parachutes to throw vanquished enemies from less than vertical tall cliffs. The idea was the parachute would somewhat retard their decent while slowly turning them into hamburger as scraped along the walls. You've got to love a humble winner . . .
The first "real" parachutes appeared in around the 15th century. And while every skydiver learns about Di Vinci and the parachute he sketched in his Codex Atlanticus the thing you have ask yourself is why? Since the first hot air balloon was over 200 years away why did anyone need a parachute?
The answer is throughout Europe of that time stonemasons had learned how to build stone towers that sometimes reached two to three hundred feet tall. Rich noble men lived in these towers and like billionaires of today the game they played was my tower is bigger than your tower. The problem was these towers where heated with wood, furnished with straw, and lighted by fire bearing torches. And it was here the world first saw "towering infernos" and people actually jumping to their deaths to escape heat, smoke, and flame.
It didn’t take long for young entrepreneurs, looking to make a quick buck, realized some type of life saving device was needed. In 1617 Faust Veransio demonstrated a parachute he designed in front of 3000 people in Venice, Italy. The jump was only half successful as the leap form a tall stone tower resulted in his death some days later from injuries he probably would have survived today. All the aviation texts from the early 20th century make mention of these "tower jumpers" as a group while the later ones seem to focus on the parachute from WWI on.
So who truly made the "first" successful parachute decent is, so far, lost in history, but it surely wasn't that French guy in 1797 . . .
Hey man, Twardo told me about it ... I think he was there on the rigging crew. He probably jumped second, and that's why nobody remembers him for it. Pity really, he could a been somebody ... he could a been a contender.
Actually, I pulled that blurb of of one of those "On This Day In History," columns on a newswire.
Hey man, Twardo told me about it ... I think he was there on the rigging crew. He probably jumped second, and that's why nobody remembers him for it. Pity really, he could a been somebody ... he could a been a contender.
Actually, I pulled that blurb of of one of those "On This Day In History," columns on a newswire.
Actually...I was supposed to make the jump, but as the 22nd of Oct. is my BIRTHDAY, I was in a corner bar, busy gettin' BUSY the night before, and missed the load!
Unfortunately, Garnerin was also the first skydiver to go in, which he did some time later after making several jumps with his WOODEN parachute. That's right folks, there was a time they actually built the things outta wood....
(This post was edited by tbrown on Oct 30, 2007, 7:10 AM)
