November 21.
Ærostation.
Messieurs Montgolfier, two brothers, paper-makers at Annonay in the department of Ardeche, in 1782 discovered the use of rarefied air in floating balloons; and on the 21st of November, 1783, the marquis d’Arlandes and M. Pilatre Rosier made the first unconfined aërial voyage in a machine called a “Montgolfier,” in honour of the inventors, to distinguish it from balloons made with inflammable air.[510]