|
|
Article: Day the balloon went up; Answers to Correspondents.
- Article from:
- Daily Mail (London)
- Article date:
- June 22, 2001
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Solo Syndication Limited. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
QUESTION: When were party balloons invented?
THE notion of blowing air into something to make a shape goes back at least to the Aztecs. They used the bowels of cats, sewn with a vegetable thread that set an airtight seal when left in the sun, to make intricate representations of dogs and monkeys.
These took several days to make and were used as sacrifices to the gods.
It's been suggested that when cats were in short supply, the Aztecs used humans.
With the advent of the Mont-golfiers' hot-air balloon in Paris in 1783, the making of all types of balloons became popular with Europeans. These were normally crude, made from intestines of ...