How high is high? Jump!

This Day in History: October 22, 1797

When someone says, "Jump!", the usual response is, "How high?" That is, unless you are jumping off a building or out of an airplane. For both the building and the plane, the height is usually predetermined. In both of these cases, the focus is on base jumpers leaping from the top of famous landmarks or skydiving fully equipped with a parachute. This leads to a question of the day, "Who was the first parachutist?" while another is when/who was responsible for such a phenomenal design?

Notice the date in the image at left: 1485! Hard to imagine the first vision goes back six centuries. Notice the name—Leonardo—none other than Leonardo da Vinci who indeed was a visionary. Leonardo da Vinci conceived the idea of the parachute in his writings but whether he tested a model is unknown. 

Almost three hundred years later, the Frenchman Louis-Sebastien Lenormand fashioned a kind of parachute out of two umbrellas. He is credited with the first witnessed decent with a parachute when he jumped from a tree in 1783. Fourteen years later on October 22, 1797, André-Jacques Garnerin made the first parachute descent from high altitude (in a gondola, type of basket, detached from a balloon) with the help of a non-rigid parachute. His wife Jeanne Geneviève Labrosse made a similar descent two years later.

So, how high is high? 3,000 to 13,000 feet if jumping from a plane...hopefully with a parachute!

It's never too late if you have the desire!

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return." ~Leonardo da Vinci