In 1783, the French brothers Montgolfier helped people go where no one had gone before, when they invented what?

Long before the airplane, humanity's first step into the sky was a surprisingly simple one, powered by nothing more than heated air. French paper-making brothers Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier observed that smoke from a fire caused lightweight materials to rise. The duo theorized that a special, lighter-than-air gas was contained within the smoke, and they set out to capture it. They constructed large envelopes of silk and paper, lit a fire underneath, and watched as their creation swelled and floated upwards, proving their principle.

Their public demonstrations in 1783 caused a sensation across France. Before entrusting a person to their device, they launched a flight with the world's first air passengers: a sheep, a duck, and a rooster (Review). The animals landed safely, proving that life could be sustained at altitude. Just two months later, on November 21, 1783, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes became the first humans to experience untethered flight, drifting over Paris for about 25 minutes. This monumental achievement marked the dawn of the aviation age, all thanks to the brothers' ingenious invention.