The Dream of Flying
From time immemorial humans dreamt about flying - taking off and being free like a bird. In Greek mythology Ikarus flew with wings made of wax and feathers, but crashed when getting too close to the sun. The great Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) designed a flying apparatus, too. But it was only the Montgolfier brothers (1783) who managed to approximate the dream a flying considerably with their first hot-air balloon
According to current state of knowledge, Otto Lilienthal (1848-1896) was the first person who successfully and repeatedly did gliding flights with an aircraft (hang glider) and thus leveraged the flight principle heavier than air. Due to the invention of parachutes, hang gliders and paragliders, air sports are now open to everybody - flying is no longer an unreachable dream but an exciting outdoor sport.