(obsolete) A child's hornbook for learning the alphabet. 1802, William Hutton, The History of the Roman Wall, preface You will also pardon the errors of the Work, for you know I was not bred to letters; but, that the battledore, at an age not exceeding six, was the last book I used at school. (obsolete) A bat or beetle used in washing clothes.
The parachute, like the helicopter and the hang glider, dates back to the drawings of mankind's greatest public genius, Leonardo da Vinci.
The first known test of a purpose-made parachute was carried out in 1617 by Croatian inventor Faust Vraneiae, who had been working on his canopy - adapted from a Leonardo da Vinci sketch - as early as 1595. Vraneiae tested his invention, known as homo volans (flying man), by jumping off towers in Venice.