Aviation Milestones

This is a compilation of the timelines from Judith E. Rinard's Book of Flight, Anna Sproule's The Wright Brothers, and Jack Carpenter's Pendulum. These are the most important dates in the history of aviation, beginning from the first hot-air balloon flight to Orville Wright's death.

This ambitious, high quality London Films production follows humanity's attempts to fly from ancient times through the first balloons, the Wright brothers, and other pioneers of aviation, employing dramatic reenactments with splendid working models of early flying machines. The accurate recreation of the Wright's first flight is quite impressive.

1783: First recorded human flight in a hot-air balloon invented by French brothers Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier

1804: Englishman Sir George Cayley invents and flies the first heavier-than-air craft, a model glider

1852: Henri Giffard of France invents and flies the first dirigible, powered by steam

1867 April 16: Wilbur Wright is born near Millville, Indiana

1871 August 19: Orville Wright is born in Dayton, Ohio

1891: German engineer Otto Lilienthal becomes the first person to pilot gliders and begins a series of glider test flights

1892: Wilbur and Orville set up their Wright Cycle Company in Dayton, Ohio

1896: Lilienthal dies after a glider crash

1899 July-August: The Wrights make successful experiments with "wing-warping" and a kite

1900: The Wrights' first glider trials are held at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina

1901 July-August: The Wrights' second glider trials are held at the Kill Devil Hills, four miles south of Kitty Hawk

1901 September: In Chicago, Wilbur addresses the Western Society of Civil Engineers. In Dayton, Orville starts wind tunnel experiments

1902: Successful trials of the glider based on the Wrights' wind tunnel research are held at the Kill Devil Hills

1903 September-November: At the Kill Devil Hills, the Wrights assemble their new, power-driven flying machine in readiness for their fourth set of flying trials

1903 October 17: Professor S.P Langley tries out his full-sized, steam powered airplane (called the aerodrome) over the Potomac River; it fails to fly. A second trial in December also ends in failure

1903 December 17: The Wright brothers achieve the first controlled, powered flight in their airplane, the Flyer, going 120 feet in 12 seconds

1904-1905: With improved machines, the Wrights continue their flying trials at Huffman Prairie, Dayton, Ohio

1905 January 18: Wrights try to sell to the U.S. war department for $100,000 but offer is rejected

1905 March 1: Wrights offer to sell flyer for 50,000 pounds to the British War office but they say the price is too high

1905 May 23: Wrights assemble Flyer no. 3

1905 October 9: Wrights renew offer to U.S. secretary of war

1905 November 4: Wright Flyer offered to France for $200,000 but it is rejected

1905 December 30: The Wrights sign a contract with France for 1 million francs and spend the time between October 1905--May 1908 applying for patents and trying to sell to the U.S., England, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Austria, and Japan

1906: The Wright brothers patent their plane design

1907: American inventor Glenn Curtiss forms his own aircraft manufacturing company

1908 July 4: Glenn Curtiss flies his plane June Bug in the first public airplane flight in the United States

1908: The first airplane passenger, Charles W. Furnas, flies with Wilbur Wright

1908 September 17: Orville is injured in flying trials staged for U.S. Army. His passenger, Thomas Selfridge, is killed: the first fatality in airplane flying.

1909 July: Frenchman Louis Bleriot becomes the first to fly across the English Channel

1909 November: In the United States, the Wright Company is set up to build airplanes

1912 May 30: Wilbur Wright dies, aged 45, after sudden illness

1914: First scheduled airline flights, of a flying-boat service from St. Petersburg to Tampa, Florida

1914-1918: World War I gives dramatic impetus to aircraft design and production

1918: First experimental airmail service in the United States

1919: British pilots John Alcock and Arthur Brown fly first nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean

1923: First nonstop transcontinental flight across the United States by Kelly and Macready in 26 hours and 50 minutes

1924: Douglas World Cruisers Chicago and New Orleans make the first round-the-world flight, in about six months

1927: Charles Lindbergh makes the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean, flying 3,610 miles in 33 1/2 hours

1930: First U.S. coast-to-coast passenger airline service begins

1932: Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean

1933: Wiley Post is the first person to fly solo around the world

1939 September 1: World War II breaks out with Germany's invasion of Poland and aircraft development is speeded up

1941 December 7: Japanese bomb U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

1944 May 8: War in Europe ends with Hitler's suicide and Germany's surrender

1945 August 6: Beginning of the end of the war in Japan when an atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima from a U.S. Boeing B-29

1948 January 30: Orville Wright dies, aged 76

Next: Topic: History Day 2004