{"id":4369,"date":"2014-03-01T15:21:26","date_gmt":"2014-03-01T20:21:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/?p=4369"},"modified":"2014-03-01T15:21:26","modified_gmt":"2014-03-01T20:21:26","slug":"up-up-and-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/2014\/03\/words-of-wisdom\/up-up-and-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Up, Up And Away!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MarWOW2\"<\/a>You might think that the kite is just a simple toy, but it has been used for all sorts of things throughout the ages.\u00a0 It is said the Chinese enjoyed kite flying over 2,000 years ago.\u00a0 There is a written account of a Chinese general, dated 200 BC, describing how he flew a kite over the walls of a city under siege to get a measurement to insure that the tunnel his army was constructing would be able to get behind the city\u2019s defenses and surprise them (the measurements were accurate and the city was conquered).\u00a0 The Buddhist monks, who used kites to ward off evil spirits and to appease the gods, have been credited with spreading the use of kites throughout Asia, Korea, Japan and India.\u00a0 A Korean general once removed superstition overtaking his army when he sent aloft a straw man on fire via a kite to rally his troops \u2013 they went on to win the battle.\u00a0 Kites were popular in Micronesia and Polynesia, where they were often used for fishing.\u00a0 Marco Polo is credited for bringing the kite to Europe in the 13th century.\u00a0 In more recent history, kites were used for experiments by Ben Franklin (electricity), Alexander Graham Bell (the telephone), and Orville and Wilbur Wright (the airplane).\u00a0 William Eddy and Lawrence Hargrave\u2019s kite designs were put to use by the US Weather Bureau to send meteorological instruments into the atmosphere.\u00a0 During World War I, kites were instrumental in gaining information on troop movements and signaling.\u00a0 World War II ushered in the use of kites to prevent planes from flying too low during practice runs, and also as part of a rescue kit to help downed pilots be found.\u00a0 In recent decades, the kite has made a comeback for recreational use and competition.\u00a0 New lightweight materials have given modern kites better aerodynamics and made them lighter and more durable.\u00a0 So, go fly a kite!\u00a0 Sometimes, the best things in life are the simple things.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You might think that the kite is just a simple toy, but it has been used for all sorts of things throughout the ages.\u00a0 It is said the Chinese enjoyed kite flying over 2,000 years ago.\u00a0 There is a written account of a Chinese general, dated 200 BC, describing how he flew a kite over<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":4370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4369","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-words-of-wisdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4369"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4411,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4369\/revisions\/4411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}