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Delving into the past, one story at a time — exploring historical people, places, and events that shaped our world.

Aerial photograph of the village of Labruguière, France, taken from a kite by Arthur Batut.

Before Drones: The Forgotten Age of Kite Aerial Photography

On May 12, 1888, somewhere over a farm in southern France, a rubber band snapped. A shutter fired. A glass plate captured a road, a brook, and a bridge from

World War I Caquot kite balloon in flight, showing stabilizing lobes and tether lines used for aerial reconnaissance and artillery observation.

Balloons Of War Part V Twilight Over The Trenches

High above the mud, wire, and shattered earth of the Western Front, tethered observation balloons swayed in the wind. To soldiers below, these elongated hydrogen-filled shapes—often likened to sausages—were a

Tethered British military observation balloon supported by a wagon team during the Second Boer War.

Balloons of War, Part IV: Africa’s Skies and the Colonial Eye

When the balloon first rose over Africa, it was not over a battlefield, but as a spectacle. In 1798, during Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign, a hydrogen balloon was brought to

James Glaisher and Henry Tracey Coxwell in the basket of a tethered balloon with scientific instruments, 1864.

Balloons Of War, Part III: How Britain Turned Ballooning into Military Doctrine

By the mid-nineteenth century, military ballooning had already proven its value in war. France had used balloons during the Revolutionary Wars. The United States tested aerial observation amid the chaos

Illustration of a tethered observation balloon above the Paraguayan fortress of Humaitá during the Paraguayan War.

Balloons Of War, Part II: Eyes In The South American Sky

When the Union Army Balloon Corps quietly folded in 1863, military ballooning didn’t disappear. It migrated. Within a few years, two veteran American aeronauts—James and Ezra Allen—had carried their experience

Civil War soldiers using portable gas generators to inflate Professor Thaddeus Lowe’s military observation balloon near Gaines Mill, Virginia.

Balloons Of War, Part I: The Birth (and Near-Miss) of Aerial Reconnaissance

In early 2023, a high-altitude Chinese surveillance balloon drifted into U.S. airspace. The balloon spent days crossing the continent before an F-22 shot it down off South Carolina. U.S. officials

Nadar and the Birth of Aerial Photography

History records that a man named Nadar took the first aerial photograph from a balloon over Paris. There is only one problem: no one has ever seen it. In 1858,

How Wet Plate Collodion Opened the Sky for Photography

On a summer afternoon in the mid‑19th century, a photographer in the field might be racing the clock—glass plate in hand, chemicals ready, light fading—knowing that once the collodion dried,

Edgar Tobin’s Oilfields from Above: The 1930s Texas Surveys

In a World War I–era portrait, Edgar Gardner Tobin looks every bit the confident aviator: crisp attire, steady gaze, and the bearing of someone used to seeing the world from

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