Up, up and away: Canada's first aviation death occurred at Lansdowne Park

Between 15,000 and 20,000 people — almost half of Ottawa’s population at the time — crowded Lansdowne Park’s fairgrounds on the last Wednesday of September 1888 for the second day of the Central Canada Exhibition. Most were on hand to witness what promised to be “the most marvellous event of the age,” as Cincinnati’s “Professor” Charles W. Williams planned to ascend in his hot-air balloon to a height of 6,000 feet (about 1,825 metres) and the