Montgolfier Brothers - Competing Claims

Competing Claims

Some claim that the hot air balloon was invented some 74 years earlier by the Brazilian Portuguese priest Bartolomeu de Gusmão. A description of his invention was published in 1709 in Vienna, and another one that was lost was found in the Vatican in about 1917. However, this claim is not generally recognized by aviation historians outside the Portuguese-speaking community, in particular the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.

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Famous quotes containing the words competing and/or claims:

    “The first wrote, Wine is the strongest. The second wrote, The king is strongest. The third wrote, Women are strongest: but above all things Truth beareth away the victory.”
    —Apocrypha. 1 Esdras, 3:10-12.

    Referring to “three young men” of the bodyguard of Darius, king of the Persians, competing for his favor.

    “Let me live onward; you shall find that, though slower, the progress of my character will liquidate all these debts without injustice to higher claims. If a man should dedicate himself to the payment of notes, would not this be an injustice? Does he owe no debt but money? And are all claims on him to be postponed to a landlord’s or a banker’s?”
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