Parachutes were invented gradually , not in a single moment. Early ideas go back to Renaissance sketches, the first practical experiments were in the late 1700s, and the first successful balloon descent is usually credited to André-Jacques Garnerin in 1797.

Quick timeline

  • Leonardo da Vinci sketched a parachute concept in the 1400s.
  • Louis-Sébastien Lenormand made an early public jump in 1783.
  • André-Jacques Garnerin made the first widely recognized successful parachute descent from a balloon in 1797.
  • Airplane parachutes came later, with early recorded jumps in 1912.

In plain terms

If you mean the idea, it dates back hundreds of years. If you mean the first working parachute demonstrations, those were in the late 18th century. If you mean modern parachutes for aviation, those developed in the early 1900s.

Tiny history note

The parachute started as a bold survival idea and became a serious safety device only after repeated experiments proved it could slow a fall reliably.

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