This magnificent sport has a long and varied history, with the first attempts made hundreds of years ago. While written records are rare this far back, there are good reports that parachuting and skydiving was tried in China nearly 1,000 years ago. How would people in the distant past manage to skydive? Good question.
Consider this - natural formations such as hills and mountainsides allowed the more daring of our ancestors to try their hand with an early "parachute." It is known that the great artist/thinker/scientist Leonardo da Vinci's drawings show a parachute with a wooden frame. This dates the concept back at least a few hundred years.
The Sport Of Skydiving
In more recent times, skydiving has been both a sport and a very serious method of conducting military maneuvers. According to written records a man named Jacques Garnerin parachuted from hot-air balloons in the 1700s, usually for the entertainment of a crowd watching below. The multitude would be thrilled by the sight of a man falling toward earth, then would feel relief when Garnerin's parachute opened to bring him slowly to the ground.
About 100 years later, women started to join the excitement. According to historical records, Kathe Paulus parachuted in the European country of Germany, building a reputation for skill as a skydiver in the late 1800s. When the airplane became a part of the skydive picture, the sport became even more interesting and thrilling. The additional altitude and the moving vehicle added some great scenes to skydiving history. A woman named Tiny Broadwick is credited with being the first woman to parachute from a plane (1913). Broadwick is also credited with being the first woman to freefall from a plane (1914).
The sport didn't get the name skydiving until about 50 years ago. A man named Raymond Young reportedly coined the term, changing the concept of the activity from its previous status as parachuting. Skydiving became a from of entertainment, and then a sport. It was also a military tactic quite important to troops in World War II. In previous air battles, pilots often did not have parachutes, leaving them no choice but to land or go down with the aircraft. From the 1920s on, parachuting was part of the training for pilots. It is better to practice in than in the sky.
Following World War II, parachuting and skydiving became a very popular hobby, thanks to many of the soldiers coming back from the war. Groups of soldiers often held competitions and recreation days that involved parachutes and skydiving. Skydive schools began to dot the landscape in the 1950s and the activity has grown from there.
