French physician Jean-François Pilatre de Rozier and
François Laurent, the marquis d’ Arlandes, made the
first untethered hot-air balloon flight, flying 5.5 miles
over Paris in about 25 minutes.
Their cloth balloon was crafted by French paper-making
brothers Jacques-Étienne and Joseph-Michel Montgolfier, inventors of the world’s first successful hot-air balloons.
The Montgolfier brothers.
On this day in1877, the publication Scientific American
enthuses about Thomas Edison‘s new invention: the
phonograph, a way to record and play back sound.
Calling it a "wonderful invention," the article describes
the machine’s capability: "…whoever has spoken or
whoever may speak into the mouthpiece of the phonograph,
and whose words are recorded by it, has the assurance that
his speech may be reproduced audibly in his own tones long
after he himself has turned to dust.
On November 21, 1980, 350 million people around the world tuned
in to television’s popular primetime drama “Dallas” to find out
who shot J.R. Ewing, the character fans loved to hate. J.R. had
been shot on the season-ending episode the previous March 21,
which now stands as one of television’s most famous cliffhangers.
The plot twist inspired widespread media coverage and left the
country wondering “Who shot J.R.?” for the next eight months.
The November 21 episode solved the mystery, identifying Kristin Shepard, J.R.’s wife’s sister-in-law and his former mistress, as
the culprit.
The CBS television network debuted the first five-episode pilot
season of “Dallas” in 1978; it went on to run for another 12 full-
length seasons.
