Louis Blériot of 1909. Like some of the other prizes offered by the paper, it was widely seen as nothing more than a way to gain cheap publicity: the Paris newspaper "Le Matin" commenting that there was no chance of the prize being won. The English Channel had been crossed by an unmanned hydrogen balloon in 1784 and a manned crossing by Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries followed in 1785. Blériot, who intended to fly across the Channel in his Type XI monoplane, had three rivals for the prize, the most serious being Hubert Latham, a French national of English extraction flying
Philippine International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta newspaper from Korea and a large dog from Japan made their debut over the Pampanga skyline. Balloon participation from Malaysia, Korea, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, and the Netherlands drew crowds from around the world. Currently, the Philippine International Hot Air Balloon Festival continues to be a popular international sports aviation event. The 2006 festival featured 30 multicolored hot air balloons and more than a hundred balloon pilots from Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, Hungary, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines. It also