First flight across the English Channel by balloon

On January 7, 1785, the French aeronaut Jean-Pierre Blanchard and the American physician John Jeffries lifted off from Dover in a hydrogen balloon, aiming to become the first people to cross the English Channel by air.

It nearly ended in the water. The bag of hydrogen gave too little lift, and as the balloon sank toward the waves the pair began heaving everything overboard, ropes, anchors, scientific instruments, the ornamental oars they had hoped to row through the sky, and finally most of their clothing.

Stripped down to little more than underwear, the lightened balloon caught its buoyancy again and drifted on toward France, landing in a forest near Calais. The crossing was a genuine milestone, proving that controlled human flight could carry people across open sea, not just hop above a field. It cemented Blanchard’s fame and helped launch ballooning as the era’s most daring public spectacle.