when were pigeons first used to carry messages
Homing pigeon The sport of flying homing pigeons was well-established as early as 3000 years ago.[5] They were used to proclaim the winner of the Olympics.[5][6] Messenger pigeons were used as early as 1150 in Baghdad[7] and also later by Genghis Khan. By 1167 a regular service between Baghdad and Syria had been established by Sultan Nour-Eddin.[8] In Damietta, by the mouth of the Nile, the Spanish traveller Pedro Tafur saw carrier pigeons for the first time, in 1436, though he imagined that the birds made round trips, out and back.[9] The Republic of Genoa equipped their system of watch towers in the Mediterranean Sea with pigeon posts. Tipu Sultan used homing pigeons. They returned to the Jamia Masjid mosque in Srirangapatna, which was his headquarters. The pigeon holes may be seen in the mosque's minarets to this day.
History of ballooning On 5 June 1783 the Montgolfier brothers first publicly demonstrated an unmanned hot-air balloon 35 feet (11 m) in diameter.[18] On 19 September 1783, their balloon Aerostat Réveillon was flown with the first (non-human) living creatures in a basket attached to the balloon: a sheep called Montauciel ("Climb-to-the-sky"), a duck and a rooster.[19][20] The sheep was believed to have a reasonable approximation of human physiology. The duck was expected to be unharmed by being lifted aloft. It was included as a control for effects created by the aircraft rather than the altitude. The rooster was included as a further control as it was a bird that did not fly at high altitudes. This demonstration was performed before a crowd at the royal palace in Versailles, before King Louis XVI of France and Queen Marie Antoinette.[19] The flight lasted approximately eight minutes, covered two miles (3 km), and obtained an altitude of about 1,500 feet (460 m). The craft landed safely after flying.[19]