On this day...

First Stonehenge aerial image from a balloon

The first aerial photographs of Stonehenge - the first aerial photographs of any British archaeological monument - were displayed at the London premises of the Society of Antiquaries. They were taken from a hydrogen balloon, probably around late Sep 1906, by 2nd Lieutenant Philip Sharpe of the Royal Engineers' Balloon Section. He had been stationed since 15 Sep 1906 at Bulford Camp on Salisbury Plain, very close to Stonehenge. The Royal Engineers began using hydrogen balloons in 1878 (not hot-air), and had been experimenting with aerial photography from at least 1881. The first intentional aerial photo for archaeological purposes was taken in Jun 1899, of excavations at the Forum in Rome.

Altitude record by a Mylar tetroon

First balloon solo crossing of the Atlantic

On this day in 1984, Col. Joe Kittinger, former USAF pilot and parachutist became the first man to complete a solo transatlantic crossing by balloon.

Kittinger lifted off from Caribou, Maine, in the United States on September 14 in the 101,000 cubic feet helium-filled balloon Rosie O'Grady. He covered a distance of 5701 kilometers across the Ocean and part of Europe before landing on September 18 at Montenotte, near Savona, Italy.

Total flight time was 86 hours.

First balloon flight with animals on board

On this day in 1783, the Montgolfières brothers' balloon Aerostat Réveillon was flown in front of a crowd at Versailles, France before King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette.

On board the basket were a sheep called Montauciel ("Climb-to-the-sky"), a duck and a rooster. The sheep was believed to have a reasonable approximation of human physiology. The duck was expected to be unharmed by being lifted aloft. It was included as a control for effects created by the aircraft rather than the altitude. The rooster was included as a further control as it was a bird that did not fly at high altitudes.

The flight lasted approximately eight minutes at 460 meters, covering 3 km at about 1,500 feet.

A Japanese balloon reaches 53.7 km and sets a new record