3. From an airplane By the early 1900s, skydivers were ready to up the ante by leaping from planes instead of balloons.
There is some controversy regarding who took the first leap: Career parachutist Grant Morton gets credit from some, who say he jumped off a Wright Model B in California in 1911.
A better-sourced claim is that of U.S. Army Captain Albert Berry, who definitely parachuted from a Benoist pusher-type plane over St. Louis on March 1, 1912, according to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
Berry and his pilot, Tony Jannus, took the boxy, rectangular-winged plane to 1,500 feet (457 m). Berry climbed out on a bar dangling underneath the plane's nose and leapt.
He fell 500 feet (152 m) before his parachute, trailing behind him, engaged, and he later reported that he flipped head over heels five times midair.