If you want to take sports to a whole new exciting level,
maybe skydiving is what you are looking for. This extreme sport, along with
bungee jumping, cliff diving, paragliding and many others that let you
experience being up in mid air, is best for people who love heights and that
exhilarating rush of adrenaline in the bloodstream.
Earlier forms of the parachute
It is believed that parachutes were used in Ancient China
way back during the 1100s, and parachute-like sketches and devices were said to
have conceived by Leonardo da Vinci. However, parachutists worldwide give the
credit to French inventor Andre Jacques Garnerin as the one who made the first
parachute. This had a support to keep the chute open and a basket to hold the
diver. In 1979, he made the very first parachute jump from a balloon over
Paris, later on followed by jumps in France and England.
The development of the flexible parachute followed, this
time featuring a trapeze bar instead of a basket. Thomas Baldwin, an American
inventor, became the first American to have descended from a balloon with a
parachute in 1987. Leslie Irvin, another American, smartened up the design with
his hand-operated chute, and made a free-fall jump in Ohio in 1919,
revolutionized parachuting and paved the way for a new sport.
Valuable military contribution
When the Wright Brothers made the first aircraft flight in
1903, however, no developments were made on parachute designs. Barnstormers,
who were aerial performers traveling throughout the US every year and whose
specialty was jumping in parachutes, gave the aviators and parachutist during
the World War I one of those light bulb moments. The military began using
parachutes in their missions during World War I, serving as fast get away for
observers on balloons, who drew enemy fire from up above enemy territories.
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