This 1872 airliner invites the reader to step aboard “with no more hesitation than we now feel as we step on board the cars propelled by steam.” [Ballou’s Monthly Magazine]
In 1670, Jesuit priest Francesco Lana de Terzi devised a flying craft that would be buoyed by very thin copper spheres holding a vacuum.
frontispiece for Voyage à la lune : d’après un manuscrit authentique projeté d’un volcan lunaire, by E. Foreir or Foruy / Marchand, 1865
