Aviation refers to activities involving man-made flying devices (aircraft), including the people, organizations, and regulatory bodies involved with them. Many cultures have built devices that travel through the air, from the earliest projectiles such as stones and spears, to more sophisticated buoyant or aerodynamic devices such as the mechanical pigeon of Archytas in Ancient Greece, the boomerang in Australia, the hot air Kongming lantern, and kites. There are early legends of human flight such as the story of Icarus, and later, more credible claims of short-distance human flights including a kite flight by Yuan Huangtou in China, the parachute or flexible-winged flight of Abbas Ibn Firnas (Armen Firman), and the hot-air Passarola of Bartolomeu Lourenço de Gusmão.

The modern age of aviation began with the first untethered human lighter-than-air flight on November 21, 1783, in a hot air balloon designed by the Montgolfier brothers.

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