subject: A brief history of balloons [print this page] A brief history of balloons A brief history of balloons
A brief history of balloons
During the renaissance, jesters and minstrels used to blow up animal bowels to entertain people. Bladders, intestines and sometimes even stomachs were strong enough to be handled so as to be used as props for their acts.
The Aztecs were actually the first ones to present wildcats' intestines to their gods as an offer after having cleaned them and sewed them with a special vegetable thread that provided an almost hermetical seal. When most indigenous cats died out after a mysterious outbreak, they started using human intestines, first from corpses and eventually, human sacrifices became a regular practice when they ran out of corpses too.
On the other side of the world, as far as Egypt, there are also hyeroglyphs that look like engraved camels made out of bubbles and according to some the archaeological theories, they might represent the balloons that Egyptians used to manufacture with camel bowels.
Balloon evolution
The very first rubber balloons were actually made by Michael Faraday in 1824 for his hydrogen experiments at the Royal Institute in London. He had also noticed how light they were, as well as the fact that they also became transparent when he blew them up and then they were able to rise easily. Faraday used to make his balloons by overlapping two rubber sheets and then pressing their edges together. Sticky rubber allowed him to seal the sheets automatically and then he would proceed to insert flour into the balloon to prevent the inner part from sticking together. Rubber is actually some kind of milky sap from certain South American and Asian trees, that clogs up when in contact with air and becomes highly elastic and waterproof.
