<P> The hot air balloon is the first successful human - carrying flight technology . The first untethered manned hot air balloon flight was performed by Jean - François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes on November 21, 1783, in Paris, France, in a balloon created by the Montgolfier brothers . The first hot - air balloon flown in the Americas was launched from the Walnut Street Jail in Philadelphia on January 9, 1793 by the French aeronaut Jean Pierre Blanchard . Hot air balloons that can be propelled through the air rather than simply drifting with the wind are known as thermal airships . </P> <P> Early unmanned hot air balloons were used in China . Zhuge Liang of the Shu Han kingdom, during the Three Kingdoms era (220--280 AD), used airborne lanterns for military signaling . These lanterns are known Chinese lanterns (simplified Chinese: 孔明灯; traditional Chinese: 孔明燈). </P> <P> In the 18th century the Portuguese jesuit priest Bartolomeu de Gusmão envisioned an aerial apparatus called Passarola which was the predecessor of the hot air ballon . The purpose of Passarola was to serve as air vessel in order to facilitate communication and as a strategical device . In 1709 John V of Portugal decided to fund Bartolomeu de Gusmão's project following a petition made by the jesuit priest and an unmanned demonstration was performed at Casa da India in presence of John V, the queen Maria Anna of Austria, having as witnesses the Italian cardinal Michelangelo Conti, two members of the Portuguese Royal Academy of History, one Portuguese diplomat and one chronicler . This event would bring some European attention to this event and this project . A later article dated on October 20, 1786 by the London Daily Universal Register would state that the inventor was able to raise himself by the use of his prototype . Also in 1709, the Portuguese jesuit wrote Manifesto summário para os que ignoram poderse navegar pelo elemento do ar (Short Manifesto for those who are unaware that is possible to sail through the element air). Persecuted by the Inquisition he was prevented to continue his research, however, he left designs of a manned air vessel . </P> <P> The French brothers Joseph - Michel and Jacques - Étienne Montgolfier developed a hot air balloon in Annonay, Ardeche, France, and demonstrated it publicly on September 19, 1783, making an unmanned flight lasting 10 minutes . After experimenting with unmanned balloons and flights with animals, the first balloon flight with humans aboard, a tethered flight, performed on or around October 15, 1783, by Jean - Francois Pilatre de Rozier who made at least one tethered flight from the yard of the Reveillon workshop in the Faubourg Saint - Antoine . Later that same day, Pilatre de Rozier became the second human to ascend into the air, reaching an altitude of 26 m (85 ft), the length of the tether . The first free flight with human passengers was made a few weeks later, on November 21, 1783 . King Louis XVI had originally decreed that condemned criminals would be the first pilots, but de Rozier, along with Marquis François d'Arlandes, petitioned successfully for the honor . The first military use of a hot air balloon happened in 1794 during the battle of Fleurus, when the French used the balloon l'Entreprenant for observation . </P>

Who invented the hot air balloon and why
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