Joseph, the 12th child of an aristocratic French businessman, was the head-in-the-clouds type, able to come up with the grandest designs without the least bit of practicality in them. Etienne was Joseph’s complement: business-savvy, more focused on application than invention. The two ran their family’s paper mill, quite successfully, with Joseph musing in his free time. News accounts of the days talked of the impregnable fortress of Gibraltar, and Joseph conceived the idea of landing forces from the air.

On this day, December 14, in 1782, the Montgolfier brothers Joseph and Jacques made their first test flight of a hot-air balloon. Their device lifted off, though with no control over lift or steering, they quickly lost control of it.

Joseph observed that paper floats up on the air over a fire.  That special “gas” that comes from burning could be captured and harnessed to pull up a payload, he thought, and with the help of his brother Etienne, who became the first one up in their balloon, gave mankind its first taste of flight.