Against a Fall
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| Public Domain |
Louis-Sébastien Lenormand is considered as the first man to make a witnessed descent with a parachute and is also credited with coining the term parachute, from the Greek prefix para meaning "against", and the French word chute for "fall", hence the word "parachute" literally means an aeronautic device "against a fall". After making a jump from a tree with the help of a pair of modified umbrellas, Lenormand refined his contraption and on December 26, 17831 jumped from the tower of the Montpellier observatory in front of a crowd that included Joseph Montgolfier, using a 14-foot parachute with a rigid wooden frame.
