History of transport balloons filled with hot air were used in the first half of the 19th century and saw considerable action in several mid-century wars, most notably the American Civil War, where balloons provided observation during the Siege of Petersburg. Apart from some scattered reference in ancient and medieval records, resting on slender evidence and in need of interpretation, the earliest clearly verifiable human flight took place in Paris in 1783, when Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes went in a hot air balloon invented by the Montgolfier brothers. The Wright brothers made the first sustained, controlled and powered heavier-than-air
Penang Hot Air Balloon Fiesta the mainland. Penang Hot Air Balloon Fiesta The Penang Hot Air Balloon Fiesta is an annual hot air balloon festival held within the city of George Town in Penang, Malaysia. The festival, organised by AKA Balloon Sdn Bhd, a Malaysian private limited firm, takes place every February at the city's Polo Ground. Inaugurated in 2015, the two-day Penang Hot Air Balloon Fiesta typically features 15 hot air balloons, with the participating crew coming from various nations such as Malaysia, the Netherlands, Belgium and the United States. The previous edition of the festival in 2017 attracted as many as 170,000 visitors.