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.