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The first air plane
On December 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright made four brief flights at Kitty Hawk with their first powered aircraft. The Wright brothers had invented the first successful airplane. The Wrights used this stopwatch to time the Kitty Hawk flights. -
The first circular flight
the 1903 Flyer had only performed short, straight-line flights. To successfully market their invention, they had to demonstrate that it could turn and fly over more commonplace terrain than the sandy open spaces of Kitty Hawk. With this goal in mind, Wilbur and Orville refined their design with two more powered aircraft in 1904 and 1905. -
The first practical airplane
they now routinely made flights of several minutes. On October 5, Wilbur made a spectacular flight in which he circled the field 30 times in 39 minutes for a total distance of 24 1/2 miles. In every sense, the Wrights now had a practical airplane. They turned their attention to securing their patent and seeking a customer for their invention. They would not fly again for 2 1/2 years.The 1905 Wright Flyer is on display at Carillon Historical Park, Dayton. -
First take off from a ship
Eugene Ely pilots a Curtiss biplane on the first flight to take off from a ship. In November he departs from the deck of a cruiser anchored in Hampton Roads, Virginia, and lands onshore. In January 1911 he takes off from shore and lands on a ship anchored off the coast of California. Hooks attached to the plane's landing gear, a primitive version of the system of arresting gear and safety barriers used on modern aircraft carriers. -
Amelia Earhart fly's over the Atlantic
Amelia Earhart is the first woman to fly a solo non-stop trans-Atlantic flight. -
a airliner flies for the first time
A modern airliner, Boeing 247, flies for the first time. -
the first satellite launches
Soviet Union launches first man-made earth satellite, Sputnik 1. -
U.S. launches the first reusable spacecraft
U.S. launches the first reusable spacecraft, the Columbia shuttle.
