This will be my new nightly post.
Sometimes I get the Final Jeopardy question right. Sometimes I get it wrong…and I thought aloud, “wouldn’t it be nice to find out the answer behind the answer and question?” To which I internally replied, “Hell yeah. It’d be like thatVH1 show, but with facts.” So, my plan is to compile the nightly Final Jeopardy answer and question along with some facts. Out of time and laziness facts will be brought to you via Wikipedia or some other site that doesn’t look like it was made by retards, old people, or children.
Without further ado I bring you “Facts about Final Jeopardy” for May 13. College Jeopardy edition.
Category : Historic Flights
Answer: These two future presidents saw America’s 1st manned balloon launch in Philadelphia, 1793.
Question: Who are Thomas Jefferson and John Adams?
5 Facts about early manned ballooning
1. The first recorded manned flight was made in a hot air balloon built by the Montgolfier brothers on November 21, 1783. The flight started in Paris and reached a height of 500 feet or so. The pilots, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d’Arlandes, took off at the Palace of Versailles in a tethered hot air balloon constructed by the Montgolfier brothers. The flight nearly ended in disaster, when one spectator – Dupont de Chambon, a contemporary of Napoleon at the École militaire de Brienne – slashed at the balloon’s mooring ropes and oars with his sword after being refused a place on board. Blanchard intended to “row” northeast to La Villette but the balloon was pushed by the wind across the Seine to Billancourt and back again, landing in the rue de Sèvres.covered about 5 1/2 miles in 25 minutes.
2. Only a few days later, on December 1, 1783, Professor Jacques Charles and Nicholas Louis Robert made the first gas balloon flight, also from Paris. The hydrogen filled balloon flew to almost 2,000 feet (600 m), stayed aloft for over 2 hours and covered a distance of 27 miles (43 km), landing in the small town of Nesle.
3. Jean-Pierre Blanchard made the first manned flight of a balloon in America on January 9, 1793. His hydrogen filled balloon took off from a prison yard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The flight reached 5,800 feet (1,770 m) and landed in Gloucester County, New Jersey. One of the flight’s witnesses that day was President George Washington, and the future presidents John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe.
4. The first military use of a balloon was at the Battle of Fleurus in 1794, when L’Entreprenant was used by French Revolutionary troops to watch the movements of the enemy. On April 2, 1794, an aeronauts corps was created in the French army; however, given the logistical problems linked with the production of hydrogen on the battlefield (it required constructing ovens and pouring water on white-hot iron), the corps was disbanded in 1799.
5. The first major-scale use of balloons in the military occurred during the American Civil War with the Union Army Balloon Corps established and organized by Prof. Thaddeus S. C. Lowe in the summer of 1861. The first application thought useful for balloons was map-making from aerial vantage points, thus Lowe’s first assignment was with the Topographical Engineers. General Irvin McDowell, commander of the Army of the Potomac, realized their value in aerial reconnaissance and had Lowe, who at the time was using his personal balloon the Enterprise, called up to the First Battle of Bull Run.
Side Fact. Jeopardy is viewed the most by mouth breathers.
* In case you watched it, Yes the Answer is tonight is not the exact one. I wrote too quickly and might be one of those people who shouldn’t make websites.
