They float through the air and celebrate birthdays, they decorate grand openings of businesses and are used in medical treatments, they’ve been used as forms of luxury transportation, and the quietest of military infiltration, what are they? They’re balloons! Balloons Around The World Day celebrates these marvels that we’ve all experienced, and that have been used in a million different ways for a million different purposes. From their use in art to every other feasible application, balloons are amazing!
- The first airborne flight in a hydrogen balloon took place in December of 1783 by Jacques Charles, who determined that it would be possible based on his study of Boyle’s Law.
- The balloon was rather an amazing innovation of technologies, utilizing silk varnished in a mixture of turpentine and rubber to seal in the hydrogen. Though they faced some troubles filling the balloon they ultimately were able to get their balloon into the air and fly it 21 kilometers north.
- It is perhaps unfortunate that it was subsequently destroyed by peasants with pitchforks as a terrifying unnatural phenomenon.
- In 1824 Michael Faraday created the rubber balloon, and the rest was pretty much history.
- Before toy balloons were invented people inflated pig bladders and animal intestines.
- Silver metalized balloons were invented in the 1970s for the New York City Ballet.
- The world’s first hydrogen-filled gas balloon was launched on August 27, 1783, by Professor Jacques Charles and Robert brothers who designed and made it.
- Hot air balloon was the first recorded manned flight. It was made by the Montgolfier brothers and launched on 21 November 1783.
- Popped toy balloon makes the noise of a sonic boom. When a hole is made in a balloon, it starts to grow at almost the speed of sound in rubber which is greater than the speed of sound in the air which makes a boom.
- Around 220 AD, the Ancient Chinese invented lanterns to signal for messages during military operations. These lanterns had a small opening at the bottom where a small fire was lit. The smoke from the fire helped lift the lantern from the ground and float in the air. These were the first ancient balloons!
- Balloons were used in wars! Observation balloons were used by Napoleon in his battles and in World War I by the military to keep a check and look out for the competing forces.
- Balloons are used in medicine too! A surgical procedure called angioplasty uses tiny balloons that are inserted into a blocked blood vessel. After insertion the balloon is then inflated to clear the plaque buildup and stretch the vessel wall.
- Hot air balloons cannot fly in the rain! The rain water gets accumulated at the top which makes the balloon cooler resulting in the use of extra fuel.
- In 1783, the first hot air balloon was set to fly with a rooster, a duck, and a sheep in it and they were recorded to be the first hot air balloon passengers ever.
- In 1825, Thomas Hancock, the pioneer rubber manufacturer, sold them in the form of a do-it-yourself kit which consisted of a bottle of rubber solution and a condensing syringe.
- Latex balloons were manufactured for the first time in London in 1847 by J.G. Ingram, but they didn’t enter mass production until the 1930s.
- Rubber balloons weren’t manufactured in the United States until 1907.
- The first commercial sausage balloons were produced in 1912, and Americans began twisting balloons to make animals in the late-1930s or early-1940s.
- The word “balloon” likely comes from the Italian word ‘pallone’ meaning ‘large ball’.
- In the 1570s, balloon was a popular game played using a large inflated leather ball that was kicked or tossed back and forth; by the 1590s, the word balloon was used to refer to the ball itself.
- By 1784, balloon was also used to describe a ‘bag or vessel filled with heated air or helium so as to rise and float in the air’.
- Latex balloon manufacturers produce nearly one billion latex balloons per year.
- The Russian space team probes Vega 1 and Vega 2 used helium balloons to drop scientific instruments. The planet that “hosted” the ballons was the planet Venus in 1985.
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