Functional parachutes were conceptualized and successfully tested hundreds of years before anyone actually managed to invent a working airplane to jump out of.

A closer look

Functional parachutes were conceptualized and successfully tested hundreds of years before anyone actually managed to invent a working airplane to jump out of. Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci sketched a pyramid-shaped canopy back in the fifteenth century, and in 1783, Louis-Sébastien Lenormand officially proved the concept by leaping from an observatory tower in France. These early adrenaline junkies were so desperate to escape gravity that they engineered emergency descent systems for flying machines that did not even exist yet. They basically invented the ultimate backup plan before bothering to figure out the primary method of transportation, which is objectively hilarious from a safety perspective. It was not until hot air balloons became popular that parachutes finally found a practical use, saving aeronauts whose massive gas bags spontaneously decided to catch on fire. We spent centuries perfecting the art of falling gracefully just so the Wright brothers could eventually give us something mechanical to violently plummet from