172 years ago, in 1783, the Frenchman Henri Giffard crossed a milestone on his path to conquering the skies in his Giffard airship. Flying over the gathered crowds in Paris in 1852, he performed the first powered and steerable flight. This was 69 years after the French had become the first nation to put man into the atmosphere. The first time man mastered the skies with a hot air balloon was in 1783 before the king of France.