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1.7-2million years ago: humans learn to control fire.

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1.7-2million years ago: humans learn to control fire.

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50,000 BCE - Cave Paintings in Indonesia

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50,000 BCE - Cave Paintings in Indonesia

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10,000 BCE - Pacific Islanders invent boats, navigate by landmarks & stars

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10,000 BCE - Pacific Islanders invent boats, navigate by landmarks & stars

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9,000 BCE - Early humans depict kite flying in cave paintings

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9,000 BCE - Early humans depict kite flying in cave paintings

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Even older than the cave paintings in Lascaux, France, these ancient cave paintings in Indonesia depict a human figure flying a tethered diamond-shaped panel-- a kite!

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5000 BCE - Egyptians invent scales; Europeans invent concrete

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5000 BCE - Egyptians invent scales; Europeans invent concrete

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3500 BCE - Sailboats present enough in Egyptian life that they become motifs on vases

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3500 BCE - Sailboats present enough in Egyptian life that they become motifs on vases

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3372 BCE - First Date on the Mayan Calendar

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3372 BCE - First Date on the Mayan Calendar

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The Mayan Calendar was created in PreColumbian Mesoamerica by civilizations that actually predated Mayans, using data and time cycles based on observation of the stars and planets, including eclipses of the sun and moon.

https://www.historyonthenet.com/the-mayan-calendar

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3000 BCE - China using silk thread to make fabric

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3000 BCE - China using silk thread to make fabric

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~1700 BCE - Daedalus & Icarus Attempt Flight

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~1700 BCE - Daedalus & Icarus Attempt Flight

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Daedalus, a gifted Greek inventor, designed and built wings out of wood, metal, beeswax and eagle feathers for his son and himself, intending to fly to freedom.

http://www.auburn.edu/allynbaconanthology/documents/Icarus%20and%20Daedalus.pdf

https://in01001403.schoolwires.net/cms/lib/IN01001403/Centricity/Domain/532/Flight%20of%20Icarus.pdf

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1500 BCE - King Kai Kawus of Persia supposedly achieves lift by attaching eagles to his throne

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1500 BCE - King Kai Kawus of Persia supposedly achieves lift by attaching eagles to his throne

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800 BCE - Europeans invent iron scissors, saws, locks & keys

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800 BCE - Europeans invent iron scissors, saws, locks & keys

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500 BCE - China using crossbows, Persia builds highways & implements passports, Greece invents a railway

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500 BCE - China using crossbows, Persia builds highways & implements passports, Greece invents a railway

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400 BCE - Greek engineer Archytas builds his "Peristera," a mechanical bird

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400 BCE - Greek engineer Archytas builds his "Peristera," a mechanical bird

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A philosopher named Mozi recorded stories of wooden, bird-shaped kites used in his lifetime; these kites may have been in use even earlier. These kites were used recreationally, but also for religious and scientific reasons.

https://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/culture/kites.htm

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220 BCE - Kongming Lanterns/ Sky Lanterns introduced in China

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220 BCE - Kongming Lanterns/ Sky Lanterns introduced in China

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This invention wasn't a pursuit of flight per se, however, it was an early example of manipulation of air, via heat or steam, to generate movement

https://www.britannica.com/technology/aeolipile

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100 CE - China invents map grids, assisting land and water navigation (they'd add latitude & longitude to their grids a century later)

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100 CE - China invents map grids, assisting land and water navigation (they'd add latitude & longitude to their grids a century later)

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190 CE - China invents the first calculator (the abacus)

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190 CE - China invents the first calculator (the abacus)

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500 CE - China invents brandy wine and suspension bridges

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500 CE - China invents brandy wine and suspension bridges

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636 CE - Book of Sui is published in China, which contains accounts of manned flight via kites (men were flown from a tower as punishment)

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636 CE - Book of Sui is published in China, which contains accounts of manned flight via kites (men were flown from a tower as punishment)

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673 CE - Byzantines invent chemical warfare, via "Greek Fire," an incendiary material which burns on water.

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673 CE - Byzantines invent chemical warfare, via "Greek Fire," an incendiary material which burns on water.

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850 - Persians invent and use the astrolabe as a portable timepiece

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850 - Persians invent and use the astrolabe as a portable timepiece

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875 CE - Abbas Ibn Firnas's Semi-Successful at Flight

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875 CE - Abbas Ibn Firnas's Semi-Successful at Flight

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This Muslim inventor from Spain made his famous "flight" after building an actually successful glider that could glide while carrying a human adult. While this was technically a glide rather than a flight, this was the first successful example of such an endeavor-- though it also helped him realize that he needed to work on developing safe landings, as well as safe transit (he hurt himself badly on the landing).

https://ilmfeed.com/the-worlds-first-aviator-abbas-ibn-firnas/

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1000 CE - Europeans are ironing clothes; Arabians are cashing checks; Spanish Moors are cauterizing wounds; Chinese ppl are lighting matches, wielding portable flamethrowers and brushing their teeth with toothpaste; Byzantines are launching grenades and eating pizza.

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1000 CE - Europeans are ironing clothes; Arabians are cashing checks; Spanish Moors are cauterizing wounds; Chinese ppl are lighting matches, wielding portable flamethrowers and brushing their teeth with toothpaste; Byzantines are launching grenades and eating pizza.

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1643 CE - Italy invents the barometer to measure air pressure

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1643 CE - Italy invents the barometer to measure air pressure

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1096 CE - The Crusades (200 year war between Christians & Muslims, which drove trade & military invention especially)

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1096 CE - The Crusades (200 year war between Christians & Muslims, which drove trade & military invention especially)

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1241 - Mongol victory at te Battle of Legnica in Poland

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1241 - Mongol victory at te Battle of Legnica in Poland

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1250 - Monk Roger Bacon publishes "Secrets of Art and Nature," in which he theorizes, “(A flying) machine must be a large hollow globe of copper or other suitable metal, wrought extremely thin, in order to have it light as possible. It must then be filled with ethereal air or liquid fire and launched from some elevated point into the atmosphere, where it will float like a vessel on the water”.

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1250 - Monk Roger Bacon publishes "Secrets of Art and Nature," in which he theorizes, “(A flying) machine must be a large hollow globe of copper or other suitable metal, wrought extremely thin, in order to have it light as possible. It must then be filled with ethereal air or liquid fire and launched from some elevated point into the atmosphere, where it will float like a vessel on the water”.

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1266 - Venetian explorer/trader Marco Polo starts exploring China

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1266 - Venetian explorer/trader Marco Polo starts exploring China

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1454 - Moveable Type invented in Germany, making books and pamphlets more available/affordable; greater access to books increases literacy; increased literacy supports greater education, innovation and collaboration

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1454 - Moveable Type invented in Germany, making books and pamphlets more available/affordable; greater access to books increases literacy; increased literacy supports greater education, innovation and collaboration

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1450s - Portugal/Europe starts trafficking people from Africa to Europe, expanding trade of enslaved people. 

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1450s - Portugal/Europe starts trafficking people from Africa to Europe, expanding trade of enslaved people. 

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1470 - Oldest Known Image of a Parachute Design

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1470 - Oldest Known Image of a Parachute Design

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This sketch, from an anonymous inventor in Italy, predated Leonardo Da Vinci's famous parachute sketches in his Codex Atlanticus, which was published in 1485.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parachute#Middle_Ages

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1492 - Spain/Europe land in the Americas, colonization of the New World begins

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1492 - Spain/Europe land in the Americas, colonization of the New World begins

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The famous Italian polymath & inventor designed a flying machine based on the flight mechanisms of bats and birds. He was not the first to do so (Eilmer of Malmesbury and Abbas Ibn Firnas designed fairly successful winged gliders before him), but he was the most famous, and among the first to design a  model intended to propel as well as glide. Unfortunately, he would not live to actually build and try this design-- others would take his ideas and, ahem, fly with them years later.

http://www.leonardo-da-vinci.net/ornithopter/

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1539 - Coffee arrives in Europe via the Ottoman Empire; tea arrives twenty years later via Arab & Venetian traders.

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1539 - Coffee arrives in Europe via the Ottoman Empire; tea arrives twenty years later via Arab & Venetian traders.

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1569 - Dutch introduce Mercator Projection, offering a globe as more factual alternative to flat maps

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1569 - Dutch introduce Mercator Projection, offering a globe as more factual alternative to flat maps

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1583-1707 - England Possessions Overseas (Americas, Africa)

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1583-1707 - England Possessions Overseas (Americas, Africa)

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Active trade of enslaved people, great need for cross-atlantic travel

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1588 - English navy defeats the Spanish Armada, gaining control of the world's seas -- enabling them to extend their colonial empire

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1588 - English navy defeats the Spanish Armada, gaining control of the world's seas -- enabling them to extend their colonial empire

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1595 - Italy's Galileo Galili develops and improves a safer military compass

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1595 - Italy's Galileo Galili develops and improves a safer military compass

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1595 - Fausto Veranzio's parachute design ("Flying Man")

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1595 - Fausto Veranzio's parachute design ("Flying Man")

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Based on Da Vinci's designs, Veranzio's design used fabric stretched over a lightweight wooden frame, attached by cording to a body harness.

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1610 - Galileo publishes The Starry Messenger (Sidereus Nuncius), on his telescope discoveries about moons, planets & stars

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1610 - Galileo publishes The Starry Messenger (Sidereus Nuncius), on his telescope discoveries about moons, planets & stars

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1630s - Galileo publishes Discorsi, in which he explains the mathematical science behind gravity, velocity and resistance of falling objects

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1630s - Galileo publishes Discorsi, in which he explains the mathematical science behind gravity, velocity and resistance of falling objects

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1680 - Giovanni Alphonso Borelli publishes Animalium, in which he puts to rest the idea that humans can power flight by flapping wing-shaped contraptions (our anatomy doesn't work that way)

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1680 - Giovanni Alphonso Borelli publishes Animalium, in which he puts to rest the idea that humans can power flight by flapping wing-shaped contraptions (our anatomy doesn't work that way)

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After warring with France and Spain, Britain expands its imperial realm to include Newfoundland, Acadia, Gibraltar & Menorca. Britain also claimed & colonized several regions in "British America" until the American revolts began; they lost their colonial hold during the American revolutionary war in 1776.

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1752 - Ben Franklin develops a lightning conductor in the American colonies

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1752 - Ben Franklin develops a lightning conductor in the American colonies

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1752 - Ben Franklin uses a lightning conductor and a kite to demonstrate the relationship between lightning and electricity

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1752 - Ben Franklin uses a lightning conductor and a kite to demonstrate the relationship between lightning and electricity

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He didn't *discover* electricity, he discovered its relationship with lightning. And he did it from on the ground instead of from the top of a church spire because he was able to use a kite to reach the skies instead-- so much safer!

It's actually pretty fascinating--

read more here: https://www.fi.edu/benjamin-franklin/kite-key-experiment

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1764 - Scotland develops the first steam-condensing engine

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1764 - Scotland develops the first steam-condensing engine

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1766 - Hydrogen, accidentally discovered in 1672, is identified as an element and is studied in-depth, particularly for its low density.

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1766 - Hydrogen, accidentally discovered in 1672, is identified as an element and is studied in-depth, particularly for its low density.

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1776 - American Declaration of Independence from Britain & onset of the American Revolution

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1776 - American Declaration of Independence from Britain & onset of the American Revolution

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1783 - LeNormand's Parachute Jump from the Montelier observatory

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1783 - LeNormand's Parachute Jump from the Montelier observatory

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His design used a 14-foot rigid frame, and he hoped it would help people escape from burning buildings safely.

In the audience that day was Joseph Mongolfier, who was very impressed and inspired.

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1783 - Montgolfier Brothers launch their Hot Air Balloon

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1783 - Montgolfier Brothers launch their Hot Air Balloon

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Theirs was the first practical hot air balloon design, and the first to carry passengers without disaster. The  balloon they first shared with the public did not carry passengers; it used a silk balloon lined with paper, 10 meters in diameter. When that was successful, they made some upgrades: their first passenger-bearing balloon was made of even lighter taffeta, coated with fire-resistant varnish. But just to be safe, their first experimental passengers weren't prisoners, as the king had suggested, but farm animals: a duck, a sheep, and a rooster. The king and his queen, Marie Antoinette, were in attendance and quite impressed.

Knowing that the balloon was safe enough to do so, they were ready to try it with human passengers - they sent a science teacher aloft on a tethered hot air balloon that fall. The teacher was aloft for about 4 minutes, taking notes all the while.

Finally, the brothers were ready to try an *un*tethered flight with human passengers. In November of that year, two military officers boarded another balloon for the first untethered, free ascent in a hot air balloon in human history. They traveled for 25 minutes, over a distance of about 5.5 miles, making observations of the towns and cities below. Benjamin Franklin attended the launch and was impressed-- he wrote, "We observed it lift off in the most majestic manner. When it reached around 250 feet [76 m] in altitude, the intrepid voyagers lowered their hats to salute the spectators. We could not help feeling a certain mixture of awe and admiration."

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1784 Jeanne-Pierre Blanchard adds propulsion & steering to his hot air balloon design

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1784 Jeanne-Pierre Blanchard adds propulsion & steering to his hot air balloon design

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Blanchard added sails to add some degree of propulsion and steering to his hot air balloons, using a hand-cranked propeller and a tail rudder. This created the first example of manned flight with propulsion and steering unreliant on a ground-based handler.

Blanchard would experiment with various flaps, sails and tails on his balloon designs for the remainder of his life.

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1785 - Hot Air Balloon Disaster in Tullamore, Ireland

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1785 - Hot Air Balloon Disaster in Tullamore, Ireland

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Hot Air Balloons utilize fire to heat the air within-- unfortunately, if the balloon lands improperly, and the balloon catches fire, anything in contact with the balloon may also catch fire. In this case, the crashed balloon caused a fire that destroyed 100 homes in Tullamore, Ireland.

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1785 - Jean-Pierre Blanchard improves the parachute

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1785 - Jean-Pierre Blanchard improves the parachute

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Taking notes from LeNormand's parachute design, Blanchard designed a parachute of folded silk with no rigid frame-- it could be kept in a hot air balloon's basket for emergency use. He would demonstrate his parachute design by leaping from his hot air balloon, deploying his chute, and landing safely on the ground some time later.

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1793 - Jean-Pierre Blanchard conducts the first manned flight in America 

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1793 - Jean-Pierre Blanchard conducts the first manned flight in America 

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George Washington himself watched the launch, having provided Blanchard a passport so that he would be safe and welcome wherever he happened to land-- which turned out to be near a forest in Gloucester, New Jersey. Once there, Blanchard had to win the trust of the locals with wine he'd brought with him in order to get them to help him pack up the balloon, sign a document to prove where he'd landed, and to get back to Philadelphia.

http://stratocat.com.ar/artics/blanchard-e.htm

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1794 - French Aerostatic Corps established for military use of Hot Air Balloons

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1794 - French Aerostatic Corps established for military use of Hot Air Balloons

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Balloons gave the French an incredible advantage when it came to observation and intelligence. The corps members would fly up in tethered balloons, beyond the range of the weapons of the day, and relay information to the ground via cables.

The corps discovered, however, that producing hydrogen in the field was difficult if not impossible, so the balloons were soon considered impractical for military use and the corps was disbanded after only 5 years.

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1820s - Industrial Revolution Begins in Britain, spreads globally

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1820s - Industrial Revolution Begins in Britain, spreads globally

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1830 - France invents the sewing machine

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1830 - France invents the sewing machine

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1851 - William Bland designs (though does not build) a functional airship

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1851 - William Bland designs (though does not build) a functional airship

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This was an elongated balloon with a steam engine driving twin propellers suspended underneath. The lift of the balloon was estimated as 5 tons and the car with the fuel as weighing 3.5 tons, giving a payload of 1.5 tons. Bland believed that the machine could be driven at 80 km/h (50 mph) and could fly from Sydney to London in less than a week.

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1852 - Henri Giffard successfully engineers, builds, & flies an engine-powered airship

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1852 - Henri Giffard successfully engineers, builds, & flies an engine-powered airship

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Henri Giffard became the first person to make an engine-powered flight when he flew 27 km (17 mi) in a steam-powered airship. Airships would develop considerably over the next two decades.

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The Union Army recognized what the French had re: Hot Air Balloons & their use in military surveillance-- and they also recognized the hardships France had faced re: getting enough hydrogen to military sites.

One of the men leading the Union's Balloon Corps, Thaddeus S. C. Lowe, was an aeronaut, scientist and inventor-- he himself designed the balloons, from their skins to their flame-retardant, leak-resistant varnish. He also was able to avoid the issues experienced by the French aeronauts by engineering field-suitable hydrogen generators that could operate in the field, creating sufficient hydrogen for all their balloon operations.

Professor Lowe's successors in the military had neither the expertise nor the drive to maintain the Balloon Corps, and the Corps was retired shortly after Lowe left the military.

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1861-2 - Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin visits the Union Army Balloon Corps

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1861-2 - Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin visits the Union Army Balloon Corps

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Serving as a visiting military observer during the American Civil War, Zeppelin spends time with Thaddeus Lowe and learns a great deal about his balloon engineering.

He later returned to Germany convinced that airships were the future of human flight.

He would retire from the German military early, at the age of 52 and turn his full attention to designing and building airships.

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1863 - Solomon Andrews develops and flies his "Aereon" airship

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1863 - Solomon Andrews develops and flies his "Aereon" airship

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Andrews' airship design featured three cigar-shaped barrels, a rudder and a gondola. Andrew's airship had three 80-foot cigar-shaped balloons, with a rudder and gondola. Buoyancy was controlled by jettisoning sand ballast or releasing hydrogen lift gas, and used lift as propulsion, with no further energy required.

He would go on to develop a lemon-shaped airship, the "Aereon 2", which used a system of lines and pulleys to compress or expand the flight gases, creating a cycle of negative and positive buoyancy. This in turn manipulated airflow over the body of the balloon, creating propulsion.

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Collaborating with Charles Renard, Arthur Constantin Krebs piloted the first fully-controlled free flight with the La France, a non-rigid dirigible employed by the French army. The 170-foot (52 m) long, 66,000-cubic-foot (1,900 m³) airship, electric-powered with a 435 kg (959 lb) zinc-chlorine flow battery completed a flight that covered 8 km (5.0 mi) in 23 minutes.

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1892 - France regularly using weather balloons to collect technical data

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1892 - France regularly using weather balloons to collect technical data

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Devices aboard measured barometric pressure, temperature and humidity but had to be retrieved in order to collect the data. These large balloons inflated with gas and remained open at the bottom like a hot-air balloon. When the temperature cooled in the evening, the gasses cooled and then the balloon deflated and descended. However, no control over the balloon descending back to Earth existed. Sometimes they would drift hundreds of miles, making data gathering difficult.

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1900 - Count Zeppelin launches his airship series

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1900 - Count Zeppelin launches his airship series

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The start of a series of hydrogen-filled airship projects by Count Zeppelin: the LZ1 (1900; damaged during landing, lost investors); the LZ2(1906; both engines damaged, forced landing in the mountains, where it was destroyed by a storm); the LZ3 (1906; highly successful); the LZ4 (1908; also successful, until it caught fire during a 24-hour endurance trial for the German military).

After the first World War, Zeppelin was freed from military obligations and could design dirigibles with elegance and comfort in mind-- his crafts were a big part of what is now known as "The Golden Age of Dirigibles" that included comfortable, if expensive, international passenger flights as well as air mail delivery.

After the English R101 disaster, in which a huge hydrogen-filled airship crashed during its maiden voyage, killing 48 of the 54 people on board, Zeppelin shifted focus away from hydrogen-filled airships in favor of helium-filled designs.

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1911 - Italy uses powered flight in combat

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1911 - Italy uses powered flight in combat

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An Italian pilot, Capitano Carlo Piazza, flew over Turkish lines on the world's first aerial reconnaissance mission, and on November 1, the first ever aerial bomb was dropped by Sottotenente Giulio Gavotti, on Turkish troops in Libya, from an early model of Etrich Taube aircraft. Italy won this war within a year’s time.

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1914 - Georgia "Tiny" Broadwick showcases "freefall" parachuting technique and free-release packed parachute/ invents the ripcord

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1914 - Georgia "Tiny" Broadwick showcases "freefall" parachuting technique and free-release packed parachute/ invents the ripcord

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Georgia Broadwick was a skilled aeronaut and parachuter at a time when the US military had only a small air fleet and no parachute experience whatsoever.

Broadwick was brought in to demonstrate the use and value of parachutes, especially parachutes that could be folded and carried in a backpack. She demonstrated not just freefall parachuting, but use of a shortened, cut cord-- the rip cord-- and is the first person recorded to ever use such a technique.

Shortly after Broadwick's demonstration, the US Army began investing in parachutes and parachute training. Three years later, the US Army would christen the 82nd Airborne division, which specializes in parachute assault operations and was used heavily in World Wars 1 & 2.

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1916 - First use of incendiary ammunition to bring down a military dirigible

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1916 - First use of incendiary ammunition to bring down a military dirigible

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As dirigibles became more valuable in conflict for their stealthy observational use, it became clear that regular bullets couldn't bring them down-- they were filled with gases that were lighter than air and would leak very slowly-- a couple of holes didn't affect them profoundly.

New bullets were developed to ignite on contact; these incendiary bullets would ignite the dirigibles' hydrogen, causing them to burst into flame.

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Although the Zeppelin company had planned to shift its models to a helium-based lift after the British R101 disaster, and although they had initially designed the LZ 129 Hindenburg airship-- the longest, largest ship in its class- to be a helium-based ship, they ultimately redesigned it for hydrogen as a cost-cutting measure.

On its final flight, the Hindenburg was delayed in its landing in Manchester, New Jersey due to thunderstorms; shortly after cables were finally dropped to the ground crew, the ship burst into flames and dropped to the ground about 40 seconds later.

The direct cause of ignition remains debated-- from sabotage to gas cell failure to static from the storms, many theories continue to be set forth today.

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These hydrogen balloons didn't carry people-- they carried 33lb bombs. The Japanese military used the jetstream over the Pacific Ocean to carry these balloons across to the Pacific Northwest of the United States. While these airborne weapons had a low kill-rate (only about 6 Americans died as a result of these, and most of these casualties occurred because the Americans touched them out of curiosity) (note: please do not pick up bombs you find lying around in the woods), they damaged to American farm and forestland.

Interestingly, whenever deaths or fear resulting from these balloons was reported, the US government immediately censored the story, to prevent news of any success reaching the Japanese military. Because of this censorship, actual figures of found balloons and resulting damage are inconsistent.

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1963 - Domina Jalbert Parafoil becomes popular

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1963 - Domina Jalbert Parafoil becomes popular

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For military or recreation, innovations in parachute design improve maneuverability and safety. Parasailing, Parachuting and gliding sports become popular as recreation throughout the United States and the world.

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1963 - US Hot Air Balloon Pilot Championships established

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1963 - US Hot Air Balloon Pilot Championships established

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Hot Air Ballooning, freed from its military obligations, is now purely recreational-- and gatherings are beautiful.

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Prior to the development of functional drone cinematography, Jacques Cluzaud, Michel Debats & Jacques Perrin filmed this documentary about birds and their migratory flights using a wide range of tools: ultralight motorized aircraft balloons, gliders, motorized parachutes, hot air balloons, trucks,  boats, a French Navy warship ...and a whole lot of birds they raised from hatchlings.

It's a really amazing piece of cinematography, especially considering the fact that it was done without any drone assistance.

The trailer is here, if you're interested:
https://youtu.be/w-GYI2-ET-c

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2010 - South Korean Activists use balloons to communicate with North Korean citizens

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2010 - South Korean Activists use balloons to communicate with North Korean citizens

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The activists send rice, toiletries and other supplies- as well as anti-dictatorship messages- to their neighbors to the north. Unfortunately, this angers the Dictator in the North, and can result in retaliation. On several occasions, North Korean and South Korean forces have exchanged gunfire because of the balloons, though there have yet to be any casualties.