3, 2, 1...blastoff!

From the discovery that hot air is lighter than cold air to the conquest of space, fire has been central to the devices man has used to fly. The history of attempts to realize the dream of Icarus—who died when he flew too close to the sun—is littered with tragic accidents, accounting for the status of aviators as heroes.

Abbas Ibn Firnas was the first, in 875 at the age of 65, to stay aloft for 10 minutes, borne on feathered wings similar to Leonardo de Vinci's 1488 inventions.

In 1783, the Montgolfier brothers came up with the idea of filling a globe-shaped balloon of sackcloth with hot air to achieve liftoff. A maiden flight—with a sheep, a duck and a rooster aboard—took place in Versailles while Louis XVI looked on.

A motorized, heavier-than-air flight would have to wait for Clément Ader and his "Airplane," which made several short hops in 1897. Just 72 years later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, like Tintin, walked on the moon!