Parachuting, or skydiving, is a methodoftransiting from a high point to Earth with the aid ofgravity,involving the control of speed during the descent with theuse of aparachute. It may involve more or less free-fall, a timeduringwhich the parachute has not been deployed and the bodygraduallyaccelerates to terminal velocity.

Andre-Jacques Garnerin was the first to make successfuldescentsusing a canvas canopy from a small basket tethered beneathahot-air balloon. The first intentional freefall jump witharipcord-operated deployment is credited to Leslie Irvin in1919.Georgia Broadwick made an earlier freefall in 1914 usingimprovisedequipment when her static line became entangled with theaircraft'stail assembly and she cut the static line and pulleditherself.

The military developed parachuting technology as a way tosaveaircrews from emergencies aboard balloons and aircraft inflight,and later as a way of delivering soldiers to thebattlefield. Earlycompetitions date back to the 1930s, and itbecame an internationalsport in 1952.