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FRASIER’S FRIDAY FACT

Volume CCXXXI

1/7/2022

Hello everyone,

Happy Friday! Welcome back to Frasier’s Friday Fact, where we cherish knowledge and continually build our mental database of useless information to use at parties.

Here we are, with the first Fact of the New Year, and the first Fact with a new template. So why don’t we celebrate these firsts with another first, shall we?

We’ve had a few English Channel-related facts in the past, I will admit. But on this date in 1785, the French Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries became the first to cross the English Channel by air, in the new hot air balloon. The first manned hot air balloon flight was only fourteen months earlier, when Jean Francois Pilatre de Rozier and Francois Laurent flew over Paris for 25 minutes. This duo was trying to cross the Channel as well, but were killed in an explosion on an attempted crossing.

Blanchard and Jeffries nearly failed as well - they, much like myself, packed too many items for their trip. The duo brought along anchors, a hand-operated propeller (which didn’t work), and oars with which they hoped to “row” their way through the air. All this extra gear weighed them down, and they were rapidly losing altitude as they approached the French coast. The pair tossed their items overboard in an attempt to stay afloat - Blanchard even took off his pants and threw them over the side as well. The effort was successful, and the two were able to make it across.

Let this be a 2022 lesson to you all - if you’re short of your goals, toss all your baggage, take off your pants, and keep sailing onward.

Stay flying, my friends.

Fraish