I am a former civilian skydiving instructor, so have a bit of personal knowledge of this subject that I have gained over the years.

Firstly, we need to clarify the difference between "parachuting" and "skydiving". For some this may be pedantic or be seen as quibbling with terms, but most sport and military jumpers today recognize the differentiation. When talking about "parachuting", we are focusing on the act of descending under parachute. When talking about "parachuting", this typically means exiting the aircraft using a static line or some form of direct deployment method, where the process of opening your parachute canopy is literally initiated immediately as you exit the aircraft, typically by a "static line" which has one end attached to the aircraft and the other end to the deployment bag in your backpack which contains the parachute. As you exit the aircraft and fall away, the parachute is pulled away and out from your backpack (due to the static line attached to the aircraft) automatically without any jumper intervention. When you do this kind of jump, the static line ensures that the lines attaching the jumper to the parachute canopy are pulled taut, and as the canopy exits the deployment bag that the parachute is packed in on your back, the chute begins to inflate and catch air and you are then separated from the aircraft's static line entirely, free to descend under your own canopy. This effectively means you are "under canopy" immediately as is practically possible after exiting the aircraft, with no real "freefall" time involved.

"Skydiving" is typically referring to the act of jumping without a static line in order to deliberately enter freefall. That is where you exit the aircraft and once out the door, you are instantly separated from the plane, and are falling free with nothing but drag on your body to slow you to terminal velocity. After falling awhile, you must then manually deploy your parachute canopy, ensuring it has enough time to deploy from the container, fill with air and arrest your fall rate before you impact the ground.

The first "freefall" skydive that was deliberately executed is typically recognized as being back in 1914 by a "barnstormer" woman named Georgina "Tiny" Broadwick, using a parachute device known as the "Broadwick Coatpack" that was in large part designed by her father. In that case, she jumped clear of the aircraft, waited a few seconds, and then manually deployed the canopy without static line, as an earlier static attempt had caused her static line to tangle with the rear tail assembly of the aircraft. While she was definitely in freefall on that jump, she certainly never hit terminal velocity or entered into a fully stabilized vertical fall during that event. What she did back in 1914 is what many skydivers today would call a "hop and pop" jump, where you just hop out the door of the plane, fall clear and wait a few seconds, then "pop" or deploy your canopy manually using the same technique as if you were freefalling at terminal speeds.

Early barnstorming parachutists and freefall skydivers were most definitely considered extreme foolhardy "daredevils". We humans of course very rightly have a fear of falling from heights, so for the public to witness these kinds of parachute and freefall events from the ground was a big thrill that they knew carried a VERY real risk of death for the jumper. Many of these jumps were carried out at events like state fairs and early airshows that featured various types of early aircraft, done in front of a voyeuristic crowd who were there to not only witness how "cool" and brave it was, but because the risk of death for the jumper was a very real possibility back then, especially due to the lightly-tested and very prototype jump rigs and materials used in those early parachute/skydiving contraptions.

Most people considered these early barnstormer parachute and freefall pioneers as being "crazy", reckless, daring thrillseekers who perhaps had a death wish, particularly since they were doing these jumps back in the early days for fun (and, of course, money). It was not until the early days of World War I when the military began to adopt parachutes as "life-savers" (that is parachutes in the military realm were originally called) that parachutes began to be seen to have a legitimate practical purpose. Parachutes were first used in the military in WWI by balloon reconnaissance pilots/observers, who were hoisted aloft by hot air balloon in order to serve as high altitude artillery spotters. If the enemy was able to shoot enough holes in the balloon and cause it to collapse, the crew aboard could either ride the remains of the balloon and basket down to a high speed impact and most likely certain death, or jump out of the basket at altitude and pray their static line-deployed parachute system would hopefully save them. Soon after, many pilots in WWI began using parachutes to increase the odds of saving themselves if they were shot down or suffered some kind of catastrophic failure to the airframe when in flight.

Parachutes were of course also used to great effect in the military realm during WWII, both to deliver troops to the ground quickly in enemy territory as well as to save the lives of aircrews who were forced to bail out of their damaged aircraft. It was really after the Second World War that parachuting and skydiving began to slowly be seen as a viable "sporting" activity for the public to consider. In 1952, skydiving became recognized as an international sport, and parachute and skydive clubs began to pop up around the world in various nations. Still though, it took several decades - at least until the late 1980s and early 1990s - before many in the public began to consider sport skydiving to be a viable and relatively safe sporting activity that anyone could partake in with a minimal amount of training.

Even to this day though, many people consider parachuting and skydiving to be a somewhat crazy, foolhardy activity - certainly not "perfectly normal" behavior, even though modern advancements in the gear used has made it statistically a very safe sport. When many people find out you like to skydive, they still think you must have a screw loose in your head, so I really do not think it is considered as a totally "normalized" or completely mainstream sporting activity, even to this day.