Who made the first rubber balloon?
Inflatable
A balloon is an inflatable flexible filled with air and also gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide or oxygen. Modern balloons can be made from materials such as Natural latex rubber, polychloroprene, or a nylon fabric, while some early balloons were made of dried animal bladders . latex rubber balloons are used for children playing amusement it is cheap toys for rural people's children it also use as decorative purposes, while others are used for practical purposes such as meteorology, medical treatment, military defense, or transportation. A balloon's properties, including its low density and low cost, have led to a wide range of applications. The inventor of the natural latex rubber balloon, (the most common balloon) was Michael Faraday in 1824, via experiments with air and various gases.
History of ballooning
Modern hot air balloons, with a more sophisticated onboard heat source than the Montgolfier brothers' basket of hot coals, were pioneered by Ed Yost beginning in the 1950s which resulted in his first successful flight on October 22, 1960. The first modern day hot air balloon to be built in the United Kingdom (UK) was the Bristol Belle in 1967. Today, hot air balloons are used primarily for recreation, and there are some 7,500 hot air balloons operating in the United States.
Thaddeus S. C. Lowe
In 1857 Lowe built and piloted his first balloon in tethered flight at a small farm in Hoboken, New Jersey. Thad's father joined in the balloon making business and had become an accomplished aeronaut himself. In 1858 the Lowes built the larger balloon "Enterprise" and several others.
Carl Edgar Myers
Myers once made balloons and equipment for the experimentation of making artificial rain and gained renown for that beyond any other scientist. The balloons were referred to as "bombs" – rain-producing explosions. The first demonstration experiments, based on theories by Illinois engineer Edward Powers for making rain, were done in May 1891 for General Robert Saint George Dyrenforth (Patent Commissioner) of Washington, D.C. at Myers' Frankfort "balloon farm". Dyrenforth, who represented the United States Department of Agriculture, then had Myers make a few balloon "bombs" for a presentation in Washington, D.C. The rain producing tests were done successfully in the early part of July 1891 in front of government officials, scientists, chemists, and engineers.
Mesoamerican rubber balls
Ancient Mesoamericans were the first people to invent rubber balls (), sometime before 1600 BCE, and used them in a variety of roles. The Mesoamerican ballgame, for example, employed various sizes of solid rubber balls and balls were burned as offerings in temples, buried in votive deposits, and laid in sacred bogs and cenotes.
Rodney W. Brown
Aside from his own television and film productions, Rodney Brown is known for his ability to organize, plan and market large-scale parades. He was a marketing consultant on Bob Kemp’s meteoric rise as the “Balloon Man”. Kemp produced giant helium character balloons, like Woody Woodpecker and Yogi Bear, and Brown marketed them to parade organizers. Brown was the first person to get character balloons to cross international waters on the “Spirit of Detroit” boat, balloons of Popeye and Olive Oyl, between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. Brown was a consultant to the George HW Bush inaugural parade and the International Cherry Blossom Parade, an annual DC tradition. He produced the Potomac Riverfest and International Sister City Parades. He also created and produced the first annual Washington DC, Thanksgiving Day parade with Argelia Rodriguez and long time producer/friend Wilfred Williams, with Shari Lewis and Lambchop starring as the hosts and announcers. The first Discover America Holiday Parade was created. organized, and televised in 1992 with Grand Marshal Barney in his first national parade.
History of ballooning
Blanchard went on to make the first manned flight of a balloon in America on January 10, 1793. His hydrogen-filled balloon took off from a prison yard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The flight reached 5,800 feet (1,770 m) and landed in Gloucester County, New Jersey. President George Washington was among the guests observing the takeoff.
Hot air balloon
Modern hot air balloons, with an onboard heat source, were developed by Ed Yost, beginning during the 1950s; his work resulted in his first successful flight, on October 22, 1960. The first modern hot air balloon to be made in the United Kingdom (UK) was the Bristol Belle, built in 1967. Presently, hot air balloons are used primarily for recreation. Hot air balloons are able to fly to extremely high altitudes. On November 26, 2005 Vijaypat Singhania set the world altitude record for highest hot air balloon flight, reaching . He took off from downtown Mumbai, India, and landed south in Panchale. The previous record of had been set by Per Lindstrand on June 6, 1988, in Plano, Texas.
Solar balloon
In 1972, Dominic Michaelis, a British architect and the inventor of many solar utilities and projects, invented and built the first solar balloon, with a clear external surface and dark, heat-catching internal walls.
Hans Georg Friedrich Groß
Hydrogen balloon plans by Groß led to the construction of the "Humboldt". This performed six ascents, two ending in non-fatal crashes; during deflation after its final landing on 26 April 1893, it exploded due to electrostatic charging and burnt. For his next balloon, the "Phönix", Groß developed a variant of the "Reißbahn" invented by John Wise in 1844. This allowed the pilot to rapidly deflate a gas balloon upon landing. The "Phönix" performed 23 manned ascents from 1893 to 1896, a total 180 hours in the air and reached a maximum altitude of 9155 metres on 1894-12-04 with Arthur Berson.
Toy balloon
Latex rubber toy balloons were introduced by pioneer rubber manufacturer Thomas Hancock the following year in the form of a do-it-yourself kit consisting of a bottle of rubber solution and a condensing syringe. Vulcanized toy balloons, which unlike the earlier kind were unaffected by changes in temperature, were first manufactured by J.G. Ingram of London in 1847 and can be regarded as the prototype of modern toy balloons.
Chicago Pile-1
Chicago Pile 1 was encased within a balloon so that the air inside could be replaced by carbon dioxide. Anderson had a dark gray balloon manufactured by Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. A cube-shaped balloon was somewhat unusual, but the Manhattan Project's AAA priority rating ensured prompt delivery with no questions asked. A block and tackle was used to haul it into place, with the top secured to the ceiling and three sides to the walls. The remaining side, the one facing the balcony from which Fermi directed the operation, was furled like an awning. A circle was drawn on the floor, and the stacking of graphite blocks began on the morning of 16 November 1942. The first layer placed was made up entirely of graphite blocks, with no uranium. Layers without uranium were alternated with two layers containing uranium, so the uranium was enclosed in graphite. Unlike later reactors, it had no radiation shielding or cooling system, as it was only intended to be operated at very low power.
Jean Piccard
Developed with John Akerman of the University of Minnesota and piloted by Jean Piccard in 1937 in Rochester, Minnesota, the first multi-celled balloon was called "The Pleiades" and was made of 98 latex rubber balloons. In a letter to Robert Gray of the Dewey and Almy Chemical Co. later published in "Time" magazine, Piccard describes how he broke balloons with a hunting knife and revolver to control his descent. A TNT charge released the cluster as he expected but sent burning excelsior down that destroyed the first "Pleiades". He suggested to Gray that rock wool in place of excelsior would prevent similar accidents in the future.
Balloon (aeronautics)
The first balloon which carried passengers used hot air to obtain buoyancy and was built by the brothers Josef and Etienne Montgolfier in Annonay, France in 1783: the first passenger flight was 19 September 1783, carrying a sheep, a duck, and a rooster.
Sulfur vulcanization
Thomas Hancock (1786–1865), a scientist and engineer, was the first to patent vulcanization of rubber. He was awarded a British patent on May 21, 1845. Three weeks later, on June 15, 1845, Charles Goodyear was awarded a patent in the United States. It was Hancock's friend William Brockedon who coined term 'vulcanization'.
Gas balloon
A gas balloon is a balloon that flies in the air because it is filled with a gas less dense than air or lighter than air (such as helium or hydrogen). It is tied to a thread to prevent it from flying up in the air. It is also sealed at the bottom to ensure that the gas doesn't escape. A gas balloon may also be called a "Charlière" for its inventor, the Frenchman Jacques Charles. Today, familiar gas balloons include large blimps and small rubber party balloons. Blimps have displaced zeppelins (which are not balloons) as the dominant form of airship.
Hot air balloon
The hot air balloon is the first successful human-carrying flight technology. The first untethered manned hot air balloon flight was performed by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes on November 21, 1783, in Paris, France, in a balloon created by the Montgolfier brothers. The first hot-air balloon flown in the Americas was launched from the Walnut Street Jail in Philadelphia on January 9, 1793 by the French aeronaut Jean Pierre Blanchard. Hot air balloons that can be propelled through the air rather than simply drifting with the wind are known as thermal airships.
History of ballooning
Jacques Charles designed the balloon, and the Robert brothers constructed a lightweight, airtight gas bag. Barthélémy Faujas de Saint-Fond organized a crowd-funded subscription to finance the brothers' project. The Roberts dissolved rubber in a solution of turpentine, with which they varnished stitched-together sheets of silk, to make the main envelope. They used alternating strips of red and white silk, but the rubberising varnish yellowed the white silk.
Bouncy ball
A superball or power ball is a bouncy ball of composed of a type of synthetic rubber (originally a hard elastomer Polybutadiene alloy named Zectron) invented in 1964, with has a higher coefficient of restitution (0.92) than older balls such as the Spaldeen, so that when dropped from moderate height onto a level hard surface, it wall bounce nearly all the way back up. They were first sold by the Wham-O toy company under the name Super Ball, which remains their trademark. Superballs are often smaller than a Spaldeen.
History of ballooning
On 5 June 1783 the Montgolfier brothers first publicly demonstrated an unmanned hot-air balloon in diameter. On 19 September 1783, their balloon "Aerostat Réveillon" was flown with the first (non-human) living creatures in a basket attached to the balloon: 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. This demonstration was performed before a crowd at the royal palace in Versailles, before King Louis XVI of France and Queen Marie Antoinette. The flight lasted approximately eight minutes, covered two miles (3 km), and obtained an altitude of about 1,500 feet (460 m). The craft landed safely after flying.
Columbia Industries
Columbia Industries was a company involved in the manufacture and sale of bowling balls and ten-pin bowling-related accessories. Their most notable brand name was Columbia 300, which produced some of the most well-known balls in the sport. Beginning in 1960 in Ephrata, Washington (near the Columbia River), Columbia Industries was the first manufacturer to successfully use polyester resin ("plastic") in bowling balls. Prior to this, nearly all bowling balls were made of a hard rubber material. The company later moved to San Antonio, Texas.
Eduard Spelterini
In the 1880s, after having successfully made 17 ascents by himself, Spelterini began to offer commercial rides with passengers. In 1887, he had his first own balloon made by the Surcouf company in Paris, a gas balloon with a volume of 1,500 cubic meters, which he named "Urania". The first voyage with this ballon was on October 5, 1887, starting in Vienna. Subsequently, Spelterini moved to the United Kingdom, where he performed together with an American aerial acrobat going by the name of Leona Dare who would perform acrobatic acts suspended under the basket of Spelterini's balloon during the flights. The spectacle, but also Spelterini's often taking journalists for a ride for free ensured them favourable publicity. Together, they toured eastwards through Europe until Moscow, where they parted. Spelterini turned southwards, making ascents in Bucharest, Saloniki, and Athens, before moving to Cairo. After his ascents in spring 1890 over the pyramids of Giza he continued touring, first to Naples, then to Istanbul.
In 1891, Spelterini returned to Switzerland. By that time, he was famous for his ballooning adventures. On July 26, 1891, Spelterini made his first ascent in Switzerland, starting at the Heimplatz in Zurich. The initial skepticism of the people vanished quickly, and his starts soon attracted crowds wherever he turned up: Zurich, Winterthur, St. Gall, Interlaken, Vevey, ... His endeavours also caught the attention of scientists. On various occasions, Spelterini made ascents with scientists solely for the purpose of conducting experiments: with physicists to study the atmosphere, with physicians to study human blood cells at low atmospheric pressure, with geologists to study the earth from above.
Geologist Albert Heim had once proposed to Spelterini to try crossing the Alps by balloon. But he needed a larger balloon for such an endeavour. With the help of sponsors, he was able to buy the "Wega", twice as large as "Urania" with a volume of 3,260 cubic meters. With it, Heim and Spelterini planned to travel from Sion in the Valais across Uri into the Grisons. But the winds decided otherwise. Despite unfavourable wind conditions, they started on October 3, 1898. The winds drove the balloon across Les Diablerets and then further westwards, across Lake Neuchatel and the Jura Mountains, until they descended near Besançon in France. Much of the trip was made at altitudes between 5000 and 6000 meters above sea level.
Free Life (balloon)
The adventure was thought up by Rodney Anderson and his wife, Pamela Brown. Pamela Brown was the actress daughter of Kentucky politician and attorney John Y. Brown, Sr. and the sister of Kentucky Fried Chicken entrepreneur and future Kentucky Governor John Y. Brown Jr. At age 28, she and her 32-year-old husband, commodities broker Rod Anderson, hoped to break records with the first manned balloon flight across the Atlantic. The couple planned to recoup the cost of the venture by writing a book about their experience. When the pilot whom they had been counting on for the flight withdrew close to the time of departure, the Andersons hired Englishman Malcolm Brighton, 32, whose ascent in the "Free Lif"e was to be his 100th - and his last. Malcolm Brighton had built several balloons and became the main builder for the "Bristol Belle", the name given to the first modern hot air balloon in Europe.
Tennis ball
In the early 1870s lawn tennis arose in Britain through the pioneering efforts of Walter Clopton Wingfield and Harry Gem, often using Victorian lawns laid out for croquet. Wingfield marketed tennis sets, which included rubber balls imported from Germany. After Charles Goodyear invented vulcanised rubber, the Germans had been most successful in developing vulcanised air-filled rubber balls. These were light and coloured grey or red with no covering. John Moyer Heathcote suggested and tried the experiment of covering the rubber ball with flannel, and by 1882 Wingfield was advertising his balls as clad in stout cloth made in Melton Mowbray.
Bowling ball
Bowling balls were made of lignum vitae (hardwood) until the 1905 introduction of rubber balls. Polyester ("plastic") balls were introduced in 1959 and, despite their generating less hook-generating lane friction than rubber balls, by the 1970s plastic dominated over rubber balls which then became obsolete with the early-1980s development of polyurethane ("urethane") balls. Urethane balls developed more friction with the newly-developed polyurethane lane finishes of the day, sparking the evolution of coverstock technology to pursue ever-stronger hooks with correspondingly higher entry angles.
Ball
Although many types of balls are today made from rubber, this form was unknown outside the Americas until after the voyages of Columbus. The Spanish were the first Europeans to see bouncing rubber balls (albeit solid and not inflated) which were employed most notably in the Mesoamerican ballgame. Balls used in various sports in other parts of the world prior to Columbus were made from other materials such as animal bladders or skins, stuffed with various materials.
Richard Lindon
Richard Lindon (30 June 1816 – 10 June 1887) was an English leatherworker who was instrumental in the development of the modern-day rugby ball by advancing the craft for ball, rubber bladder, and air pump.
Farley's &amp; Sathers Candy Company
RainBlo bubble gum was created by Leaf Confectionery in 1940; featuring an unusual hollow center, it was the first gumball to have flavoring inside. RainBlo was the first bubble gum that allowed chewers to blow colored bubbles. Along with several other Leaf brands, it was sold in 1967 to W.R. Grace, then was reacquired by Leaf in 1983. Huhtamaki Oy acquired RainBlo when it bought Leaf in 1983. Hershey then bought Leaf in 1996.
Golf ball
The next major breakthrough in golf ball development came in 1898. Coburn Haskell of Cleveland, Ohio had driven to nearby Akron, Ohio for a golf date with Bertram Work, the superintendent of the B.F. Goodrich Company. While he waited in the plant for Work, Haskell picked up some rubber thread and wound it into a ball. When he bounced the ball, it flew almost to the ceiling. Work suggested Haskell put a cover on the creation, and that was the birth of the 20th century wound golf ball that would soon replace the guttie bramble ball. The new design became known as the rubber Haskell golf ball. For decades, the wound rubber ball consisted of a liquid-filled or solid round core that was wound with a layer of rubber thread into a larger round inner core and then covered with a thin outer shell made of balata sap. The balata is a tree native to Central and South America and the Caribbean. The tree is tapped and the soft, viscous fluid released is a rubber-like material similar to gutta-percha, which was found to make an ideal cover for a golf ball. Balata, however, is relatively soft. If the leading edge of a highly lofted short iron contacts a balata-covered ball in a location other than the bottom of the ball a cut or "smile" will often be the result, rendering the ball unfit for play in most instances.
Robert brothers
Jacques Charles and the Robert brothers launched their balloon, the world's first hydrogen-filled balloon, on August 27, 1783, from the Champ-de-Mars (now the site of the Eiffel Tower); Benjamin Franklin was among the crowd of onlookers. The balloon was comparatively small, a 35 cubic-metre sphere of rubberised silk, and only capable of lifting about 9 kg. It was filled with hydrogen that had been made by pouring nearly a quarter of a tonne of sulphuric acid onto half a tonne of scrap iron. The hydrogen gas was fed into the envelope through lead pipes; but as it was not passed through cold water, great difficulty was experienced in filling the balloon completely (the gas was hot when produced, but as it cooled in the balloon, it contracted). Daily progress bulletins were issued on the inflation; and the crowd was so great that on the 26th the balloon was moved secretly by night to the Champ-de-Mars, a distance of 4 kilometres.
Rossa Matilda Richter
In April 1877, the 14-year-old Richter became the first human cannonball, performing as "Zazel, the Beautiful Human Cannonball." The "Mackay Mercury" wrote that the event "hurled her from the jaws of death into the arms of fame." She was fired out of a spring-style cannon, travelling through the air and landing in a net. Accounts of the event vary on the distance she traveled, between and . The cannon used rubber springs to limit the distance she would travel. Although Farini had filed another patent in England in 1875 (and in the US in 1879) for an "adaptation [of the cannon] so as to use explosives as a means for releasing the catch," a gunpowder-based explosion was used only for effect during the show.
Plastic
The first fully synthetic rubber was synthesized by Sergei Lebedev in 1910. In World War II, supply blockades of natural rubber from South East Asia caused a boom in development of synthetic rubber, notably styrene-butadiene rubber. In 1941, annual production of synthetic rubber in the U.S. was only 231 tonnes which increased to 840,000 tonnes in 1945. In the space race and nuclear arms race, Caltech researchers experimented with using synthetic rubbers for solid fuel for rockets. Ultimately, all large military rockets and missiles would use synthetic rubber based solid fuels, and they would also play a significant part in the civilian space effort.
Villa Sormani
Paolo Andreani had seen a model balloon built by and his brothers ascend a few feet powered by hot air. Andreani undertook to fund the Gerli brothers to build a much larger hot-air balloon with a diameter of that would be capable of allowing a man to take to the air. The balloon took 24 days to make and its laden weight was about . The first flight was on 25 February 1784. An invited crowd then gathered on 13 March 1784 at the Villa Sormani which was his brother's residence. The spectators saw Andreani and two of his assistants ascend to a height of over whilst the balloon travelled several kilometres. The emperor who missed the spectacle arranged for a medal to be made. The medal featured Gerli's balloon on one side and Andreani on the other to commemorate the ascent.
Rubber band
The world's largest rubber band ball as of November 19, 2008 was created by Joel Waul of Lauderhill, Florida. He is the current World Record Holder according to the Guinness World Records. The ball, which previously sat under a tarp in Waul's driveway, weighs 9,032 pounds (4,097 kg), is more than tall (which implies about a circumference), and consists of more than 700,000 rubber bands. It set the world record on November 13, 2008, in Lauderhill, Florida with rubber bands contributed by Stretchwell.com, a physical therapy company. The ball is now owned by Ripley's Believe it or Not!.
Hydraulic ram
The first self-acting ram pump was invented by the Frenchman Joseph Michel Montgolfier (best known as a co-inventor of the hot air balloon) in 1796 for raising water in his paper mill at Voiron. His friend Matthew Boulton took out a British patent on his behalf in 1797. The sons of Montgolfier obtained a British patent for an improved version in 1816, and this was acquired, together with Whitehurst's design, in 1820 by Josiah Easton, a Somerset-born engineer who had just moved to London.
Early flying machines
Meanwhile, the discovery of hydrogen led Joseph Black to propose its use as a lifting gas in about 1780, though practical demonstration awaited a gastight balloon material. On hearing of the Montgolfier Brothers' invitation, the French Academy member Jacques Charles offered a similar demonstration of a hydrogen balloon and this was accepted. Charles and two craftsmen, the Robert brothers, developed a gastight material of rubberised silk and set to work.
1783 was a watershed year for ballooning. Between June 4 and December 1 five separate French balloons achieved important aviation firsts:
Neil Tillotson
Neil E. Tillotson (December 16, 1898October 17, 2001) was the inventor of the modern latex balloon and latex gloves and founder of Tillotson Rubber Company. Later, as a resident of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, he was the first voter in every American presidential primary and presidential election from the time he took residence there to his death in 2001.
Jean Piccard
In 1935 and 1936, to reduce weight and thus enabling a balloon to reach higher altitudes, plastic balloon construction began independently by Max Cosyns in Belgium, Erich Regener in Germany, and Thomas H. Johnson and Jean Piccard, then at the Franklin Institute Bartol Research Foundation in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Johnson suggested cellophane to Jean Piccard.
Cameron Balloons
Cameron Balloons is a company established in 1971 in Bristol, England by Don Cameron to manufacture hot air balloons. Cameron had previously, with others, constructed ten hot air balloons under the name Omega. Production was in the basement of his house, moving in 1972 to an old church in the city. In 1983 Cameron Balloons moved into its current premises in the former Robinsons paper bag/printing factory (built in 1887 in the Bedminster area of the city). In 1989 the company received the Queen's Award for Export.
Toy balloon
A toy balloon or party balloon, is a small balloon mostly used for decoration, advertising and children's toys. Toy balloons are usually made of rubber or aluminized plastic, and inflated with air or helium. They come in a great variety of sizes and shapes, but are most commonly 10 to 30 centimetres in diameter. Toy balloons are not considered to include "sky lanterns" (hot-air paper balloons), although these too are or were used as child toys in some parts of the world.
Wallace Carothers
In January 1930, Dr. Elmer K. Bolton became assistant chemical director in the chemical department, and thus, Carothers' immediate boss. Bolton wanted practical results in 1930, and his wish was fulfilled. Bolton asked Carothers to examine the chemistry of an acetylene polymer with the goal of creating synthetic rubber. In April 1930, one of Carothers' staff, Dr. Arnold M. Collins, isolated chloroprene, a liquid which polymerized to produce a solid material that resembled rubber. This product was the first synthetic rubber and is known today as Neoprene.
Condom
In 1839, Charles Goodyear discovered a way of processing natural rubber, which is too stiff when cold and too soft when warm, in such a way as to make it elastic. This proved to have advantages for the manufacture of condoms; unlike the sheep's gut condoms, they could stretch and did not tear quickly when used. The rubber vulcanization process was patented by Goodyear in 1844. The first rubber condom was produced in 1855. The earliest rubber condoms had a seam and were as thick as a bicycle inner tube. Besides this type, small rubber condoms covering only the glans were often used in England and the United States. There was more risk of losing them and if the rubber ring was too tight, it would constrict the penis. This type of condom was the original "capote" (French for condom), perhaps because of its resemblance to a woman's bonnet worn at that time, also called a capote.
Balloon light
Peter Girolami purchased Airlight Industries in 2001 and reopened as Sourcemaker with the goal of creating custom lighting balloons for the film industry. Girolami rented the purchased lighting balloons but experienced difficulties purchasing replacement parts from Airstar because of bad payments. Girolami then began to manufacture his own replacement parts. He researched new materials and laminates to create a softer quality of light that is UV protected to prevent yellowing of the balloon envelopes. He also developed the cube and rectangle-shaped lighting balloons with new durable materials and the first helium-tight internal reflector to help control ambiance on film sets. The new shape allowed the cinematographer and gaffer to black out any side by attaching lightweight materials. Gaffer Russ Engels used the first cube-shaped lighting balloon.
Vincenzo Lunardi
There was a flying craze in France and Scotland with James Tytler, Scotland's first aeronaut and the first Briton to fly, but even so and after a year since the invention of the balloon, the English were still skeptical, and so George Biggin and 'Vincent' Lunardi, "The Daredevil Aeronaut", together decided to demonstrate a hydrogen balloon flight at the Artillery Ground of the Honourable Artillery Company in London on 15 September 1784. His balloon was later exhibited at the Pantheon in Oxford Street.
Smoke bomb
The smoke bomb was first created in 1848, by UK inventor Robert Yale. He developed 17th-century Chinese-style fireworks and later modified the formula to produce more smoke for a longer period of time. Early Japanese history saw use of a more rudimentary form of the smoke bomb. Explosives were common in Japan during the Mongol invasions of the 13th century. Soft cased hand-held bombs were later designed to release smoke, poison gas and shrapnel made from iron and pottery.
Richard Lindon
Around 1854 at Rugby School, the ball was kicked high in the air, dropped down a disused chimney and was lost behind wooden panels for over a century and a half. A hybrid 7-panel ButtonBall, made before the split between the Rugby Football Union and Football Association, it is the world's oldest known "template" ball, inflated with an India-rubber bladder which revolutionised ball manufacture and allowed the spread of the game throughout the world. It is the only original known to survive. This Punt-about ButtonBall holds the remains of one of Richard Lindon's India Rubber inflatable bladders and resembles the shape of the earliest plum rugby ball. The "panel and button" design led to the creation the first soccer balls.
Plastic
Natural rubber is an elastomer (an elastic hydrocarbon polymer) that originally was derived from "latex", a milky colloidal suspension found in specialised vessels in some plants. It is useful directly in this form (indeed, the first appearance of rubber in Europe was cloth waterproofed with unvulcanized latex from Brazil). However, in 1839, Charles Goodyear invented vulcanized rubber; a form of natural rubber heated with sulfur (and a few other chemicals), forming cross-links between polymer chains (vulcanization), improving elasticity and durability.
Super Ball
A Super Ball (a.k.a. SuperBall) is a toy bouncing ball based on a type of synthetic rubber invented in 1964 by chemist Norman Stingley. It is an extremely elastic ball made of Zectron which contains the synthetic polymer polybutadiene as well as hydrated silica, zinc oxide, stearic acid, and other ingredients. This compound is vulcanized with sulfur at a temperature of and formed at a pressure of . The resulting Super Ball has a very high coefficient of restitution, and dropped from shoulder level, a Super Ball bounces nearly all the way back; thrown down by an average adult, it can leap over a three-story building.
Hopper balloon
The first modern hot air balloon was flown by Ed Yost under sponsorship by the U.S. Office of Naval Research on October 22, 1960, in Bruning, Nebraska. Since Yost's balloon had a small envelope of and a chair for the pilot, not a basket, this was arguably also the first hopper balloon ever flown since the golden age of airships in 1930s.
Rubbermaid
Rubbermaid was founded in 1920 in Wooster, Ohio as the Wooster Rubber Company by nine businessmen. Originally Wooster Rubber Company manufactured toy balloons.
Enterprise (balloon)
The Enterprise was a gas inflated aerostat built by Prof. Thaddeus S. C. Lowe along with his father Clovis Lowe in 1858. It was the second balloon built by Lowe at his Hoboken, N.J. facility and named with the express approval of his wife Leontine because of the money and time they put into creating it. The "Enterprise" was built of the India silk, lightweight cording, and Lowe's patent (recipe kept secret) varnish which could keep the balloon envelope gassed up for as long as two weeks.
Hula hoop
The hula hoop gained international popularity in the late 1950s, when a plastic version was successfully marketed by California's Wham-O toy company. In 1957, Richard Knerr and Arthur "Spud" Melin, starting with the idea of Australian bamboo "exercise hoops", manufactured 1.06-metre (42 in) hoops with Marlex plastic. With giveaways, national marketing and retailing, a fad begin in July 1958: twenty-five million plastic hoops were sold in less than four months, and sales reached more than 100 million units in two years. Carlon Products Corporation was one of the first manufacturers of the hula hoop; during the 1950s, Carlon was producing more than 50,000 hula hoops per day. The hoop was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame at The Strong in Rochester, New York, in 1999.
Rubber duck
The history of the rubber duck is linked to the emergence of rubber manufacturing in the late 19th century. The earliest rubber ducks were made from harder rubber when manufacturers began using Charles Goodyear's invention, vulcanized rubber. Consequently, these solid rubber ducks were not capable of floating and were instead intended as chew toys.
Union Army Balloon Corps
The silk material balloon used by the Confederates was of a design by Dr. Edward Cheves of Savannah, Georgia. Dr. Cheves had the silk material sewn together by seamstresses and then covered the silk material with a varnish made by melting rubber in oil. The balloon was filled with a coal gas and launched from a railroad car that its pilot, Edward Porter Alexander, had positioned near the battlefield. In late June 1862, Alexander made a few ascents in the balloon and was able to signal his observations of the battlefield to men on the ground using a wigwag system that he had devised. The coal gas used in the balloon was only able to keep the balloon aloft for about three to four hours at a time.
Toy balloon
In the 1920s Neil Tillotson designed and produced a latex balloon with a cat's face and ears from a cardboard form which he cut by hand with a pair of scissors. He managed to make his first sale of these balloons with an order of 15 gross to be delivered for the annual Patriots Day Parade on April 19, 1931. The first colored balloons were sold at the 1933-34 Chicago World's Fair.
Early flying machines
In the mid-18th century the Montgolfier brothers began experimenting with parachutes and balloons in France. Their balloons were made of paper, and early experiments using steam as the lifting gas were short-lived due to its effect on the paper as it condensed. Mistaking smoke for a kind of steam, they began filling their balloons with hot smoky air which they called "electric smoke". Despite not fully understanding the principles at work they made some successful launches and in December 1782 flew a balloon to a height of . The French Académie des Sciences soon invited them to Paris to give a demonstration.
Moorgate
Moorfields was the site of the first hydrogen balloon flight in England, when Italian Vincenzo Lunardi took off on the afternoon of 15 September 1784. Lunardi flew in a hydrogen balloon from the area of the Honourable Artillery Company near Moorfields (where it still is to this day, occupying a site next to City Road). The ascent took place in front of 100,000 spectators as well as the then Prince of Wales, George, Duke of Cornwall. The envelope of the balloon was made of oiled silk, and had a diameter of 33 ft (10 m) which resulted in a volume of 18,200 cubic feet (515 m³). Due to the size of the balloon, it took all of the previous evening and early morning to fill it. Lunardi first landed at Welham Green (North Mymms), Hertfordshire, 13 miles (21 km) north of London (where the landing is commemorated with a stone, at a location now known as Balloon Corner) and then continued his flight to land at Ware, Hertfordshire after flying a total of .
High-altitude balloon
In France during 1783, the first public experiment with hydrogen-filled balloons involved Jacques Charles, a French professor of physics, and the Robert brothers, renowned constructors of physics instruments.
Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition
However, just as with the "Svea" mishaps, all objections failed to dampen Andrée's optimism. Eagerly followed by national and international media, he began negotiations with the well-known aeronaut and balloon builder Henri Lachambre in Paris, the world capital of ballooning, and ordered a varnished three-layer silk balloon, in diameter, from his workshop. The balloon, originally called , was to be renamed (The Eagle).
Union Army Balloon Corps
By 1 October 1861, the first balloon, the "Union", was ready for action. Though it lacked a portable gas generator, it was called into immediate service. It was gassed up in Washington and towed overnight to Lewinsville via Chain Bridge. The fully covered and trellised bridge required that the towing handlers crawl over the bridge beams and stringers to cross the upper Potomac River into Fairfax County. The balloon and crew arrived by daylight, exhausted from the nine-hour overnight ordeal, when a gale-force wind took the balloon away. It was later recovered, but not before Lowe, who was humiliated by the incident, went on a tirade about the delays in providing proper equipment.
Lowe built seven balloons, six of which were put into service. Each balloon was accompanied by two gas generating sets. The smaller balloons were used in windier weather, or for quick, one-man, low altitude ascents. They inflated quickly since they required less gas. They were:
Bubble Yum
Introduced in 1975 by Life Savers, the bubble gum was the first soft bubble gum created. It was created by a homemaker in Fisk, Missouri, who named it "rubber bubblegum." She gave some to her son to pass out at school. She soon sold the recipe to the lifesavers candy Division in St Louis.
Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
Anthony "Tony" Frederick Sarg loved to work with marionettes from an early age. After moving to London to start his own marionette business, Sarg moved to New York City to perform with his puppets on the street. Macy's heard about Sarg's talents and asked him to design a window display of a parade for the store. Sarg's large animal-shaped balloons, produced by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio, replaced the live animals in 1927. A popular belief was that a balloon version Felix the Cat balloon was the first character balloon in the parade back in 1927. Macy's also claimed that, but Felix actually made his first appearance in 1931.
Canson
Pierre Montgolfier (1700–1793), son of Raymond, was a brilliant manufacturer that aimed in modernizing the profession. Thanks to him, Vidalon mills grew up rapidly. For instance, he developed the Dutch beaters to replace the mallet troughs.
One of his 16 children, Joseph Montgolfier was a brilliant inventor. He developed the Bleu de Prusse colour and a new device to raise water ... With his brother Etienne Montgolfier, he created the first hot air balloon, the montgolfière. They used their own paper to make the envelope and they engineered a heating system to inflate it. The first flight took place in Vidalon on December 14, 1782. A memorial still exists in the former paper mill's courtyard, nearby the native house of the Montgolfier brothers and the current Papeteries Canson & Montgolfier museum.
Their mark is visible in the logo, it consists of a stylized hot air balloon - a reference to the Montgolfier brothers, Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne, pioneers of the hot air balloon.
In 1783, [Louis XVI ennobled Pierre Montgolfier and his family, both on account of the aerostatic invention and on that of the strides that they have spurred in the papermaking industry.
In 1784, the paper mills were granted the name ""Manufacture Royale"".
Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier
Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier () was a French chemistry and physics teacher, and one of the first pioneers of aviation. He and François Laurent d'Arlandes made the first manned free balloon flight on 21 November 1783, in a Montgolfier balloon. He later died when his balloon crashed near Wimereux in the Pas-de-Calais during an attempt to fly across the English Channel. He and his companion, Pierre Romain, thus became the first known fatalities in an air crash. He also risked himself while researching the flammability of hydrogen: in "A Short History of Nearly Everything", Bill Bryson writes "In France, a chemist named Pilatre de Rozier tested the flammability of hydrogen by gulping a mouthful and blowing across an open flame, proving at a stroke that hydrogen is indeed explosively combustible and that eyebrows are not necessarily a permanent feature of one’s face."
Oswald Short
Oswald Short was born at Stanton by Dale, Derbyshire, the son of mining engineer Samuel Short and his second wife Emma Robinson. In 1897, he took an intense interest in ballooning, after his brother Eustace Short had purchased, repaired and flown a second-hand gas balloon. The two brothers formed a partnership to design and manufacture balloons for fairground businesses, and made a joint visit to the 1900 Paris Exposition ('World's Fair'). There, they were inspired by the perfectly spherical balloons made by Édouard Surcouf of Société Astra, and they then modified their own design accordingly. In 1901, the two brothers constructed their first balloon, capacity 33,000 cu.ft, in premises above the laboratory of their brother Horace Short, in Hove, Sussex. In 1902, the balloon made successful flights, and in the same year Oswald and Eustace moved their enterprise to London. The pair made and sold gas-filled observation balloons, for customers including the government of India. In 1906, they moved their business again, to railway arches at Battersea, and flew balloons from Battersea gas works, including some passenger-carrying flights over London. Via contacts in the War Office and in the Aero Club of Great Britain (later Royal Aero Club), they went on to produce balloons of various designs for many notable people and events, up to and including the First World War.
Thomas Hancock (inventor)
Thomas Hancock (8 May 1786 – 26 March 1865), elder brother of inventor Walter Hancock, was an English self-taught manufacturing engineer who founded the British rubber industry. He invented the masticator, a machine that shredded rubber scraps and which allowed rubber to be recycled after being formed into blocks or sheets. A blue plaque commemoration is placed on No. 4 High Street in Marlborough, Wiltshire in his honour (also one for his brother).
Ward Van Orman
Ward Tunte Van Orman (September 2, 1894 in Lorain, Ohio – March 11, 1978) was an American engineer, inventor and balloonist. A lifelong employee of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company credited with invention of Goodyear's inflatable life raft and self-sealing fuel tank, Van Orman set an unprecedented record of winning five annual National Balloon Races (including the first ever Litchfield Trophy issued by Goodyear's Paul Litchfield in 1925), participating in ten and winning three International Gordon Bennett Races (1926, 1929, 1930).
Balloon modelling
The origins of balloon modelling are unknown. The 1975 book by "Jolly the Clown" Petri credits "Herman Bonnert from Pennsylvania at a magician's convention in 1939" as being the first balloontwister. Val Andrews, in "Manual of Balloon Modeling, Vol. 1, An Encyclopedic Series", credits H.J. Bonnert of Scranton, Pennsylvania as being the "daddy of them all". Jim Church III states, "Frank Zacone from Youngstown, Ohio was doing a balloon act during the 1940s and had been doing the act for some time." Another candidate for first balloon twister is Henry Maar.
Ed Yost
Paul Edward Yost (30 June 1919 – 27 May 2007) was the American inventor of the modern hot air balloon and is referred to as the "Father of the Modern Day Hot-Air Balloon." He worked for a high-altitude research division of General Mills when he helped establish Raven Industries in 1956.
Kubicek Balloons
BALÓNY KUBÍČEK was founded in 1991 by Aleš Kubíček, the designer of first modern Czech hot-air balloon, made in 1983 in "Aviatik club" in Brno. Before founding his own company Aleš Kubíček made several balloons under wings of the company Aerotechnik Kunovice. Straight after the Velvet revolution, with plenty of experience of manufacturing balloons, he started his own private company to manufacture lighter-than-air aircraft.
Dubble Bubble
Fleer Chewing Gum Company, in Philadelphia, had been searching for years to produce a formula that allowed bubbles to be blown that did not stick. In 1928, while Walter Diemer was testing new gum recipes, he noticed that his product was less sticky than regular chewing gum, and after testing it he found that he could create bubbles easily. After a year of attempts, he made the first successful batch of bubble gum. But the next morning when trying to recreate his successful concoction, he failed to reproduce the same results. After four months of trying to mimic his first success, he finally made a 300-pound batch of what would become Dubble Bubble. The only food coloring available at the factory was pink, so Diemer had no choice but to use it, and the color would go on to become the standard for gum for the world over. Using a salt water taffy wrapping machine, Diemer decided to individually wrap 100 pieces and brought the stock to a local candy store. The gum was priced at one penny apiece and sold out in one day. Before long, the Fleer Chewing Gum Company began making bubble gum using Diemer’s recipe, and the gum was marketed as “Dubble Bubble” gum. Diemer’s bubble gum was the first-ever commercially sold bubble gum, and its sales surpassed 1.5 million dollars in the first year. To help sell the new bubble gum, Diemer himself taught salespeople how to blow bubbles so that they in turn could teach potential customers.
Robert brothers
The Robert brothers were skilled engineers with a workshop at the "Place des Victoires" in Paris, who worked with professor Jacques Charles to build the first usable hydrogen balloon in 1783. Charles conceived the idea that hydrogen would be a suitable lifting agent for balloons because, as a chemist, he had studied the work of his contemporaries Henry Cavendish, Joseph Black and Tiberius Cavallo.
Rossa Matilda Richter
Rossa Matilda Richter (1863–8 December 1937) was an English aerialist and actor who became the first human cannonball at the age of 14. She began performing at a very young age, practicing aerial stunts like tightrope walking in an old London church. She took up ballet, gymnastics, and trapeze by the time she was 6 and, at 12, went on tour with a travelling acrobat troupe. In 1877, using the stage name Zazel, she was the first person to be fired out of a cannon, in front of a large crowd at the Royal Aquarium.
Second Industrial Revolution
The vulcanization of rubber, by American Charles Goodyear and Englishman Thomas Hancock in the 1840s paved the way for a growing rubber industry, especially the manufacture of rubber tyres
Toy balloon
Early balloons were made from pig bladders and animal intestines. The Aztecs created the first balloon sculptures using cat intestines, which were then presented to the gods as a sacrifice. There are references to balloons made of whale intestine in "Swiss Family Robinson" (1813) and in "Moby Dick" (1851).
Michelle Olley
Of the inception of the Rubber Ball, Olley said:
Benjamin Franklin
Franklin also served as American minister to Sweden, although he never visited that country. He negotiated a treaty that was signed in April 1783. On August 27, 1783, in Paris, Franklin witnessed the world's first hydrogen balloon flight. "Le Globe", created by professor Jacques Charles and Les Frères Robert, was watched by a vast crowd as it rose from the Champ de Mars (now the site of the Eiffel Tower). Franklin became so enthusiastic that he subscribed financially to the next project to build a manned hydrogen balloon. On December 1, 1783, Franklin was seated in the special enclosure for honoured guests when "La Charlière" took off from the Jardin des Tuileries, piloted by Jacques Charles and Nicolas-Louis Robert.
Jean-Pierre Blanchard
Following the invention of the modern parachute in 1783 by Sébastien Lenormand in France, in 1785 Jean-Pierre Blanchard demonstrated it as a means of jumping safely from a hot air balloon. While Blanchard's first parachute demonstrations were conducted with a dog as the passenger, he later had the opportunity to try it himself when in 1793 his hot air balloon ruptured and he used a parachute to escape. Subsequent development of the parachute focussed on making it more compact. While the early parachutes were made of linen stretched over a wooden frame, in the late 1790s, Blanchard began making parachutes from folded silk, taking advantage of silk's strength and light weight.
Rubber band
A rubber band (also known as an elastic band, gum band or lacky band) is a loop of rubber, usually ring shaped, and commonly used to hold multiple objects together. The rubber band was patented in England on March 17, 1845, by Stephen Perry. Most rubber bands are manufactured out of natural rubber or, especially at larger sizes, elastomer, and are sold in a variety of sizes.
History of rugby union
In 1851, a football of the kind used at Rugby School was exhibited at the first World's Fair, the Great Exhibition in London. This ball can still be seen at the Webb Ellis Rugby Football Museum and it has a definite ovoid shape. In 1862, Richard Lindon introduced rubber bladders and, because of the pliability of the rubber, balls could be manufactured with a more pronounced shape. As an oval ball was easier to handle, a gradual flattening of the ball continued over the years as the emphasis of the game moved towards handling and away from dribbling. In 1892, the RFU included compulsory dimensions for the ball for the first time in the Laws of the Game. In the 1980s, leather-encased balls, which were prone to water-logging, were replaced with balls encased in synthetic waterproof materials.
Balloon (aeronautics)
A man-carrying balloon using the light gas hydrogen for buoyancy was made by Professor Jacques Charles and flown less than a month after the Montgolfier flight, on 1 December 1783. Gas balloons have greater lift for a given volume, so they do not need to be so large, and they can also stay up for much longer than hot air, so gas balloons dominated ballooning for the next 200 years. In the 19th century, it was common to use town gas to fill balloons; this was not as light as pure hydrogen gas, having about half the lifting power, but it was much cheaper and readily available.
Light gas balloons are predominant in scientific applications, as they are capable of reaching much higher altitudes for much longer periods of time. They are generally filled with helium. Although hydrogen has more lifting power, it is explosive in an atmosphere rich in oxygen. With a few exceptions, scientific balloon missions are unmanned.
Hot air balloon
Standard hot air balloons are known as Montgolfier balloons and rely solely on the buoyancy of hot air provided by the burner and contained by the envelope. This style of balloon was developed by the Montgolfier brothers, and had its first public demonstration on 4 June 1783 with an unmanned flight lasting 10 minutes, followed later that year with manned flights.
Shoe
The earliest rubber-soled athletic shoes date back to 1876 in the United Kingdom, when the New Liverpool Rubber Company made plimsolls, or sandshoes, designed for the sport of croquet. Similar rubber-soled shoes were made in 1892 in the United States by Humphrey O'Sullivan, based on Charles Goodyear's technology. The United States Rubber Company was founded the same year and produced rubber-soled and heeled shoes under a variety of brand names, which were later consolidated in 1916 under the name, Keds. These shoes became known as, "sneakers", because the rubber sole allowed the wearer to sneak up on another person. In 1964, the founding of Nike by Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman of the University of Oregon introduced many new improvements common in modern running shoes, such as rubber waffle soles, breathable nylon uppers, and cushioning in the mid-sole and heel. During the 1970s, the expertise of podiatrists also became important in athletic shoe design, to implement new design features based on how feet reacted to specific actions, such as running, jumping, or side-to-side movement. Athletic shoes for women were also designed for their specific physiological differences.
Balloon (aeronautics)
The first recorded manned flight was made in a hot air balloon built by the Montgolfier brothers on 21 November 1783. The flight started in Paris and reached a height of 500 feet or so. The pilots, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes, covered about 5½ miles in 25 minutes.
History of condoms
The rubber vulcanization process was invented by Charles Goodyear in 1839, and patented in 1844. The first rubber condom was produced in 1855, and by the late 1850s several major rubber companies were mass-producing, among other items, rubber condoms. A main advantage of rubber condoms was their reusability, making them a more economical choice in the long term. Compared to the 19th-century rubber condoms, however, skin condoms were initially cheaper and offered better sensitivity. For these reasons, skin condoms remained more popular than the rubber variety. However, by the end of the 19th century "rubber" had become a euphemism for condoms in countries around the world. For many decades, rubber condoms were manufactured by wrapping strips of raw rubber around penis-shaped molds, then dipping the wrapped molds in a chemical solution to cure the rubber. The earliest rubber condoms covered only the glans of the penis; a doctor had to measure each man and order the correct size. Even with the medical fittings, however, glans condoms tended to fall off during use. Rubber manufacturers quickly discovered they could sell more devices by manufacturing full-length one-size-fits-all condoms to be sold in pharmacies.
Siping (rubber)
John Sipe's invention was unsuccessful. It was applied to solid rubber tires, rather than pneumatic tires, and so the tires had poor wet grip anyway, owing to their limited contact patch. It was his son, Harry E. Sipe, who popularised the use of sipes in the USA for the new low-pressure balloon tires around 1939.
Carl Edgar Myers
Myers built his first balloon in the summer of 1878 in Mohawk Valley. It was over in diameter and could contain 10,000 cubic feet of hydrogen gas. The balloon material with its valve weighed almost one hundred pounds. The envelope material was high quality cotton cloth that was unbleached. It was varnished with linseed oil gum thinned with turpentine. Myers invented machinery that applied the coats of varnish onto fabric of silk or cotton. There were several coats of varnish applied to make a balloon envelope impervious to hydrogen. The first of these patented machines, that took fourteen days to construct, was in operation for seven years. Myers made sixty hydrogen balloons in sixty days in 1891. He built a set of ten hydrogen gas balloons in five days in 1892.
Nerf
Parker Brothers originally developed Nerf, beginning with a polyurethane foam ball. In 1969, Reyn Guyer, a Minnesota-based games inventor, came to the company with a volleyball game that was safe for indoor play, and after studying it carefully, Parker Brothers decided to eliminate everything but the foam ball. In 1970, the Nerf ball was introduced as the "world's first official indoor ball", the name "Nerf" being a slang term for the foam padding used in off-road racing. Marketing slogans promised that one can "Throw it indoors; you can't damage lamps or break windows. You can't hurt babies or old people." Some of the first TV commercials for the balls were joint promotions with General Foods' Kool-Aid drink mix, with Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones and Michael Nesmith of the Monkees playing with the balls on a living room soundstage (Kool-Aid sponsored the 1969-70 Saturday morning reruns of the Monkees' 1966-67 TV series). The ball filled a strong consumer need and by the year's end, more than four million Nerf balls had been sold. The four-inch (102 mm) ball was followed by a large version called the "Super Nerf Ball". Shortly after, in 1972, a basketball game called "Nerfoop" and the Nerf football joined the family, with the latter quickly becoming Nerf's most popular ball.
Ball Brothers
Frank and Edmund Ball founded the Ball brothers' manufacturing business in 1880 in Buffalo, New York. Three other brothers (William, Lucius, and George) soon joined the family business. In 1887–88 the brothers moved their manufacturing operations to Muncie, Indiana, where the firm would be closer to an abundant natural gas supply. As the brothers' company continued to prosper and expand, it became especially well known for its glass canning jars, but diversified into other industries. Beginning in the 1950s, the Ball Corporation entered the aerospace sector, and later became a global manufacturer of plastic and metal food and beverage containers.
Gas balloon
The first gas balloon made its flight in August 1783. Designed by professor Jacques Charles and Les Frères Robert, it carried no passengers or cargo. On 1 December 1783 their second hydrogen-filled balloon made a manned flight piloted by Jacques Charles and Nicolas-Louis Robert, 10 days after the first manned flight in a Montgolfier hot air balloon.
Synthetic rubber
The first rubber polymer synthesized from butadiene was created in 1910 by the Russian scientist Sergei Vasiljevich Lebedev. This form of synthetic rubber provided the basis for the first large-scale commercial production by the tsarist empire, which occurred during World War I as a result of shortages of natural rubber. This early form of synthetic rubber was again replaced with natural rubber after the war ended, but investigations of synthetic rubber continued. Russian American Ivan Ostromislensky who moved to New York in 1922 did significant early research on synthetic rubber and a couple of monomers in the early 20th century. Political problems that resulted from great fluctuations in the cost of natural rubber led to the enactment of the Stevenson Act in 1921. This act essentially created a cartel which supported rubber prices by regulating production, but insufficient supply, especially due to wartime shortages, also led to a search for alternative forms of synthetic rubber.
Lake Norman
Normie is not the only balloon seen flying over Lake Norman. Located north of Lake Norman is Statesville, home to the first hot air balloon flight in North Carolina. Bill Meadows and Tracy Barnes conducted this feat, propelling Statesville to become a hub for hot air balloon life. Barnes established The Balloon Works to “manufacture and sell hot air balloons.” Today, The Balloon Works is now Firefly Balloons Factory, “one of the largest manufacturers of sport and commercial hot air balloons in the world.” Statesville has celebrated the area's history of hot air balloons through Carolina BalloonFest, which is a hot air balloon festival held every year for the past forty decades. Color abounds as balloons ascend to the skies around sunrise and sunset during the festival. The Carolina BalloonFest is the second consecutively longest running hot air balloon festival in the United States.
History of military ballooning
The first major-scale use of balloons in the military occurred during the American Civil War with the Union Army Balloon Corps established and organized by Prof. Thaddeus S. C. Lowe in the summer of 1861. Originally, the balloons were inflated with coal gas from municipal services and then walked out to the battlefield, an arduous and inefficient operation as the balloons had to be returned to the city every four days for re-inflation. Eventually hydrogen gas generators, a compact system of tanks and copper plumbing, were constructed which converted the combining of iron filings and sulfuric acid to hydrogen. The generators were easily transported with the uninflated balloons to the field on a standard buckboard. However, this method shortened the life of the balloons, because traces of the sulfuric acid often entered the balloons along with the hydrogen. In all, Lowe built seven balloons that were fit for military service.
Piccard Balloons
Piccard Balloons, along with Raven Industries (founded by Ed Yost), SEMCO, and The Balloon Works (now Firefly Balloons), was among the first manufacturers of hot air balloons. Don Piccard, descended from a long line of aeronauts, built and sold some of the first modern hot air balloons, beginning in the mid-1960s. Piccard Balloons contributed much to the sport of Hot air ballooning, through innovative design and construction.
History of ballooning
Only a few days later, at 13:45 on December 1, 1783, professor Jacques Charles and the Robert brothers ("Les Frères Robert") launched a new, manned hydrogen balloon from the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris, amid vast crowds and excitement. The balloon was held on ropes and led to its final launch place by four of the leading noblemen in France, the Marechal de Richelieu, Marshal de Biron, the Bailli de Suffren, and the Duke of Chaulnes. Jacques Charles was accompanied by Nicolas-Louis Robert as co-pilot of the 380-cubic-metre, hydrogen-filled balloon. The envelope was fitted with a hydrogen release valve, and was covered with a net from which the basket was suspended. Sand ballast was used to control altitude. They ascended to a height of about 1,800 feet (550 m) and landed at sunset in Nesles-la-Vallée after a flight of 2 hours and 5 minutes, covering 36 km. The chasers on horseback, who were led by the Duc de Chartres, held down the craft while both Charles and Robert alighted.
Jacques Charles
Charles conceived the idea that hydrogen would be a suitable lifting agent for balloons having studied the work of Robert Boyle's "Boyle's Law" which was published 100 years earlier in 1662, and of his contemporaries Henry Cavendish, Joseph Black and Tiberius Cavallo. He designed the craft and then worked in conjunction with the Robert brothers, Anne-Jean and Nicolas-Louis, to build it in their workshop at the "Place des Victoires" in Paris. The brothers invented the methodology for the lightweight, airtight gas bag by dissolving rubber in a solution of turpentine and varnished the sheets of silk that were stitched together to make the main envelope. They used alternate strips of red and white silk, but the discolouration of the varnishing/rubberising process left a red and yellow result.
Balloonomania
Early ballooning was met with mixed responses. Crowds of hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic onlookers would turn out for a balloon launch, even threatening to riot if the launch was delayed. Some, however, were not quite as impressed, as shown by the events of August 27, 1783 when professor Jacques Alexandre César Charles, who had been commissioned to build a rival balloon to the Mongolfier’s version using hydrogen, launched his balloon from the Champs de Mars before a large crowd including American scientist Benjamin Franklin. The balloon travelled for “forty-five minutes and fifteen miles to the village of Genoesse, where it was attacked by frightened peasants on landing.”
Gas balloon
On October 24, 2014, Alan Eustace, a former Google executive, made a jump from the stratosphere, a shepericarp ballon, breaking Felix Baumgartner's 2012 world record. The launch-point for his jump was from an abandoned runway in Roswell, New Mexico, where he began his balloon-powered ascent early that morning. He reached a reported maximum altitude of 135,908 feet (41.425 km; 25.7402 mi), but the final number submitted to the World Air Sports Federation was 135,889.108 feet (41.419000 km; 25.7365735 mi).[2] The balloon used for the feat was manufactured by the Balloon Facility of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Hyderabad, India. Eustace in his pressure suit hung tethered under the balloon, without the kind of capsule used by Felix Baumgartner. Eustace started his fall by using an explosive device to separate from the helium balloon.
Robert brothers
At 13:45 on December 1, 1783, Professor Jacques Charles (after whom a hydrogen balloon came to be called a "Charlière" ) and the Robert brothers launched a new manned balloon from the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris, amid vast crowds and excitement. The balloon was held on ropes and led to its final launch place by four of the leading noblemen in France, the Marechal de Richelieu, Marshal de Biron, the Bailiff of Suffren, and the Duke of Chaulnes. Jacques Charles was accompanied by Nicolas-Louis Robert as co-pilot of the 380-cubic-metre, hydrogen-filled, balloon. The envelope was fitted with a hydrogen release valve and was covered with a net from which the basket was suspended. Sand ballast was used to control altitude. They ascended to a height of about 1,800 feet (550 m) and landed at sunset in Nesles-la-Vallée after a 2-hour, 5-minute flight covering 36 km. The chasers on horseback, who were led by the Duc de Chartres, held down the craft while both Charles and Nicolas-Louis alighted.
Water ball
Charles Jones from Oklahoma developed a water ball commercially in 1998. He was invited by a British reporter to visit London to demonstrate the ball on a lake. As soon as he attempted to walk across the water, he lost his balance and fell. The ball deflated and filled rapidly with icy water. He was saved from sinking below the surface when an assistant dragged the ball back to dry land using a safety line, witnessed by a crowd of tourists.
Robert brothers
Jacques Charles designed the hydrogen balloon and the Robert brothers invented the methodology for constructing the lightweight, airtight gas bag. They dissolved rubber in a solution of turpentine and varnished the sheets of silk that were stitched together to make the main envelope. They used alternate strips of red and white silk, but the discolouration of the varnishing/rubberising process left a red and yellow result.