Garnerin began experiments with early parachutes based on umbrella-shaped devices and carried out the first frameless parachute descent (in the gondola) with a silk parachute on 20 October 1797 at Parc Monceau, Paris (1st Brumaire, Year VI of the Republican calendar). Garnerin’s first parachute was made of white canvas with a diameter of approximately 23 feet (7 m). The umbrella was closed before he ascended, with a pole running down its center and a rope running through a tube in the pole, which connected it to the balloon. Garnerin rode in a basket attached to the bottom of the parachute; at a height of approximately 3,000 feet (1,000 m) he severed the rope that connected his parachute to the balloon. The balloon continued skyward while Garnerin, with his basket and parachute, fell. The basket swung violently during descent then bumped and scraped when it landed, but Garnerin emerged uninjured. We celebrate this epic jump with an Ai generated image of Garnerin in his Basket Parachute …

October 20

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