What is the Early History of Airships?
The history of airships begins on August 8, 1709, when Portuguese Jesuit priest Bartolomeu de Gusmao successfully floated a ball to the ceiling of the Casa da India in Lisbon, by means of combustion. Surprisingly, this is the first verified historical reference to any type of powered (non-gliding) airship. Earlier references to powered flight or airships are purely mythological, such as the Greek legend of Icarus. Bartolomeu de Gusmao’s demonstration was in the presence of the royal Court of Portugal, and King John V, who had originally provided the funds for the endeavor. He had plans to produce manned airships, but he died before they could be carried out. Little else of importance in the history of airships occurred until almost a century later, in June 1783, when the Montgolfier brothers, French inventors who began as paper manufacturers, built the first legitimate flying machine in human history, a globe-shaped balloon with a volume of more than 28,000 cubic feet and an internal f
