On this day in 1785, two men completed the first balloon trip across the English Channel. Jean-Pierre François Blanchard, a French inventor, and American doctor John Jeffries made the trip in two and a half hours inside a hydrogen balloon. Along the way, the balloon lost gas and almost fell into the channel, but the pilots kept airborne by throwing overboard all the ballast, clothing, and cargo (except an international mail package). They successfully made the first international airmail delivery when they landed in the Felmores Forest in France.