Up Next
Back to Show
NOVA
Ben Franklin's Balloons Preview
The first stage in human flight didn’t begin with the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk, but with daring inventors and aeronauts in 18th century Paris. In a period of just 19 months, humanity not only left the ground for the first time but thanks to a handful of brilliant and colorful pioneers, developed all the essential features of today's hot air air and gas balloons.
Support Provided By
Unlock with PBS Passport
53:47
See how Earth transformed from a barren hellscape to a planet capable of sustaining life.
53:31
Who created the Nazca lines and why? New clues to one of the greatest ancient enigmas.
53:43
Ancient footprints provide new evidence of humans and extinct giant beasts of the Ice Age.
53:16
Sir David Attenborough explores a site with traces of ancient mammoths and Neanderthals.
53:30
In the Arctic, enormous releases of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, threaten the climate
Unlock with PBS Passport
53:17
Intrepid paleontologists discover that dinosaurs thrived in the Arctic’s cold and dark.
Unlock with PBS Passport
53:28
Take a tasty look at insect foods that could benefit our health and our warming planet.