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On August 7, 1974, a 24-year-old French high-wire artist named Philippe Petit was preparing to do something no one had ever done before.

Shortly after 7 a.m., Petit stepped onto the roof of the South Tower of the World Trade Center. Dressed in all black and carrying only a long balancing pole, he made his way onto a steel cable stretched between the Twin Towers – 1,350 feet above the streets of New York.

Source: twintowers_nyc / Instagram

For nearly an hour, he walked back and forth between the towers. He bowed to the crowd below, sat on the wire, and, at one point, even lay down on it.