Man has always wanted to fly. Some of the greatest men in history have thought about the problem. One of these, for example, was the great Italian artist, Leonardo da Vinci. In the sixteenth century he made designs for machines that could fly. But they were never built., Throughout history, other less famous men have wanted to fly. An example was a man in England 800years ago. He made a pair of wings from chicken feathers. Then he fixed them to his body and jumped into the air from a tall building. He did not fly very far. He fell to the ground and broke every bone in his body. The first real step took place in France in 1783. Two brothers, the Mongolfiers, made a very large "hot air balloon". They knew that hot air rises. Why not fill a balloon with it? The balloon was made of cloth and paper. In September of that year, the King and Queen of France came to see the balloon. They watched it carry the very first air passengers into the sky. The passengers were a sheep and a chicken. We do not know how they felt about the trip. But we do know that the trip lasted 8 minutes and that the animals landed safely. Two months later, two men did the same thing. They rose above Paris in a balloon of the same kind. Their trip lasted twenty-five minutes and they traveled about 8 kilometers. Leonardo da Vinci  _  .
said that man would fly in the sky one day built a kind of machine which never flew drew many beautiful pictures of the birds made designs of flying machines