The Paper Men Who Launched a Barnyard Into the Sky

Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier ran a paper mill in southern France. They were prosperous, respected, and — by all accounts — perfectly sensible businessmen.

Then Joseph watched some embers float above a fire and decided humans should do that too.

He wrote to his brother: "Get in a supply of taffeta and of cordage, quickly, and you will see one of the most astonishing sights in the world." Within months they had built a balloon of paper and silk, launched it from a town square, and watched it sail two kilometers into the sky. King Louis XVI demanded a demonstration at Versailles. He also suggested they test it on condemned prisoners. The Montgolfiers declined. Instead, they loaded a basket with a sheep named Montauciel — French for "Climb-to-the-sky" — a duck, and a rooster. The logic was rigorous: the sheep's physiology resembled a human's, the duck was a control that already flew at altitude, and the rooster was a bird that didn't. Before the king and queen and a vast crowd, the three animals rose into the air and drifted for eight minutes.

On landing, the rooster had a broken wing. Fears for future human passengers were allayed, on the grounds that humans would not be traveling with a sheep.

Nine weeks later, two men flew over Paris.

During World War II, the Army Air Corps Airship Group chose an insignia for their uniforms. It depicted a sheep, a duck, and a rooster. At least one patch still hangs in the Smithsonian.