Full of hot air

Two important dates should be noted today in the history of aviation:

• Oct. 15, 1783 – The Montgolfier brothers' hot air balloon made its first human ascent with Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier in a tethered balloon. It made its first non-tethered flight with a human on Nov. 21, 1783.
  
  
• Oct. 15, 1910 – The airship America launched from Atlantic City, N.J., in the first attempt to cross the Atlantic by a powered aircraft. The airship had gone east of New Hampshire and south of Nova Scotia when the engines failed and it drifted south. Thirty-three hours and 1,370 miles later, the crew were rescued west of Bermuda. The first successful aerial crossing of the Atlantic came nine years later.