| 500 BC |
The Earliest known invented of the
kite was in ancient China. The most likely
places are Yew Nan province and Shandong
province. |
| 400 BC |
The Chinese Artisan Lu Pan produced
the first known kite to be recorded in
writing. |
| 400 BC |
An Italian mathematician and
inventor, Archytas of Tarentum (420 B.C. -
411 B.C.) built a series of toys, among them
a mechanical bird that was propelled by steam
jet. He also wrote about the wind and about
kites. It is possible that he saw, or heard
of, Chinese kites. |
| 200 BC |
A Roman philosopher Aulus Gellius
wrote a study on wind and described a kite.
It is possible that he invented the kite
independently, not knowing of kites and
kiting in China. |
| 105 BC |
The Romans flew decorated wind socks
and military banners. |
| 200 AD |
A Chinese inventor Han Hsin, built
and flew a mechanical bird. The bird flew by
flapping its wings. These mechanical birds
can still be seen in the parks of China. Both
children and adults play with them. They are
very noisy in flight. |
| 1230 |
During a Mongol Siege in 1232, a
Chinese general used a kite to send messages
behind enemy lines. |
| 1282 |
Marco Polo
in his Travels in China
describes the use of a very large
kite. |
| 1326 |
A historical archive dated 1326
contains pictures of flying
dragons. |
| 1400 |
By 1400 Europeans knew how to make
and fly dragon kites. |
| 1405 |
Conrad Kyser, a great scientist and
inventor published a book with illustrations
of a diamond shaped kite. |
| 1589 |
A philosopher named Giambattista
della Porta studied the wind, and published
the first book in the West with a 'modern'
kite. He described how a kite can be used to
lift firecrackers. Firecrackers were invented
and used in China, and as so many other
technical innovations, were brought to the
West by merchants and
missionaries. |
| 1600 |
By the beginning of the 17th
century, kite making and flying was common in
Europe. |
| 1700 |
In the 18th century kite flying
became a popular past-time in Europe, but
kiting was limited to entertaining children
outdoors. |
| 1749 |
Alexander Wilson flew a number of
kites all stacked on one line, which
increases pulling force, to record air
temperatures at different
altitudes. |
| 1752 |
Benjamin Franklin
flew a kite to test what
lightening and thunder were made of. Most
people thought that thunder caused
lightening, and so did Franklin. He attached
a small sharp nail to the front of the kite
and lifted the kite on a cotton line. He had
fastened the other end of the kite line to a
piece of metal with a small gap in it as in a
spark plug which were housed in a bottle, a
Leyden jar. He wore silk gloves and insulated
the line with silk to avoid an electric shock
to his hands. It began to rain, then
lightening struck the kite. The kite line was
wet, which made it a good conductor. The
electric current charged down the line and
jumped the gap, which Franklin saw. Thus he
showed that lightening is electricity.
Franklin speculated that there were two kinds
of electricity, one of which he called
positive and the other negative. Today we
categorize electricity a little differently.
We distinguish between static electricity and
current electricity. But all electricity is
the same, consisting of a positive and a
negative charge. |
| 1767 |
Benjamin Franklin met Joseph
Priestley (1733 - 1804) an English
Chemist and a great scientist, to discuss the
present state of electrical knowledge. After
listening to Franklin's description of his
kite experiment, Priestley conducted a number
of electrical experiments which led to an
accurate assessment of the nature of
electricity. |
| 1827 |
George Pockock used a number of
kites to pull a horseless buggy along a beach
in England. There are claims that he pulled
his buggy with his kite for about 150
km. |
| 1866 |
Mahlon Loomis sends the first
telegraph message over radio waves between
two mountains in West Virginia, using two
aerials held in the air by
kites. |
| 1847 |
A young boy, Homan Walsh flew a kite
in the town of Niagara, in Ontario. The kite
he flew was observed by a number of engineers
who were puzzled on how to stretch a cable
needed for a suspension bridge they were
building, across the valley of the Niagara
river. They observed master Walsh, and then
discussed the kite among themselves over
coffee, and by mid afternoon knew they could
learn from him. They let a kite cross the
river and let it descend. They now had a line
stretched from one bank of the river to the
other bank. With this light and fragile line
they pulled a stronger line, and with this
line an even stronger line, and, well the
rest is history. |
|
1893
|
Eddy used a Diamond kite and
Hargrave used a Box kite to raise scientific
observation instruments. |
| 1894 |
B.F.S. Baden-Powell, brother of the
father of the Boy Scouts movement, developed
and used a kite to lift a human being into
the air. The man was suspended under the kite
on a swing, which swayed a lot. Baden-Powell
wanted to ride his kite, but no one would let
him do so until he had refined his kite to
make it a little safer. |
| 1894 |
The Italian electrical engineer
Marchese Guglielmo Marconi (1874 - 1937)
built his first radio equipment with which he
was able to ring a bell, using radio signals,
a full 10 m. or 30 ft. away. Later Marconi
used a kite to raise an aerial with which he
received the first overseas radio
signals. |
| 1899 |
The Wright Brothers used a
number of different kites to study how birds
fly. They were totally wrong about the
mechanics of the flight of birds, but they
did use the knowledge gained from kites to
build their heavier than air flying
machine. |
|
| 1901 |
Guglielmo Marconi used a kite to
lift an aerial high up in the sky in
Newfoundland. The aerial produced the first
cross Atlantic radio link. |
| 1902 |
A kite designed by Silas J. Conyne,
an American inventor, was used to raise a
soldier way up to see what the enemy was up
to. |
| 1903 |
The Wright Brothers successfully
flew the first self-powered manned flying
machine. Samuel Franklin Cody, a real cowboy
from Texas, was pulled across the English
Channel with a train of kites. |
| 1906 |
Someone lifted a camera on a kite to
photograph the damage done by an earthquake
in San Francisco. |
| 1907 |
Alexander Bell
built and flew a huge kite
made up of 3000 tetrahedrals, or pyramid
shaped cells. |
| 1919 |
A German man flew a number of kites,
all strung on one line, to a height of almost
32,000 ft, or over 10,000 m. |
| 1948 |
Francis Rogallo invented and
patented a new kind of kite. He called it the
Flexi-wing kite. This kite was the father, or
mother, of modern hang-gliders and all modern
large delta- shaped kites. |
| 1964 |
Domina Jalbert designed the parafoil
kite. The Jalbert kite was adapted by
manufacturers of maneuverable parachutes and
other types of large kites. |
| 1972 |
Peter Powell developed the modern
two line stunt, or sport kite. |
| 1989 |
Kite flying becomes a national sport
in the USA and in many other
countries. |
| 1990 |
Kite festivals and competitions are
established in many places around the
world. |
| 1995 |
Sport kiting makes a leap into
the computer age with computer designed
kites which push the flight envelop into
unexplored territory.
|
| 2000 |
The standing recognized world
record in altitude for a kite was set by
Richard Synergy in Ontario, Canada. His
team sailed a Delta Kite with a 30 foot
wide wingspan 13,609 ft above his ground
level.
|
