News

How the Union took to the skies in the Civil War
The year: 1861. The problem: Pro-slavery states had broken away from the Union, rising up in armed revolt as the treasonous ...
PBS4y
The History of Ballooning
De Rozier's experimental system consists of a hydrogen balloon and a hot air balloon tied together ... 1794-1945—Balloons Used in Wars: From the U.S. Civil War, through World Wars I and II ...
Interesting Engineering on MSN13d
US high-altitude spy balloons.
The US Army is developing high-altitude spy balloons designed to track enemy stealth fighters beyond the reach of traditional ...
Smithsonian Magazine7y
Civil War Ballooning
The story of how Thaddeus Lowe reinvented reconnaissance at the encouragement of President Lincoln. Who Was the Real Cleopatra? Fact or Fiction? The Legend of the QWERTY Keyboard What Does a ...
The San Bernardino Sun17d
The history of aerial photography from hot air balloons to pigeons to drones
By the 1860s, cameras had developed enough to be placed on aerial platforms like hot air balloons, and later ... None of Lowe’s Civil War aerial photos have been located, but his balloons ...
Smithsonian Magazine10y
Civil War Ballooning
The story of how Thaddeus Lowe reinvented reconnaissance at the encouragement of President Lincoln. Ask Smithsonian: What Are the Weirdest Things Pregnant Women Crave? Remembering the Birmingham ...