- December 17, 1903: Wright brothers stage the first flight covering 36.3 metres (120 feet) on the Kill Devil Hills sand dunes at Kitty Hawk in North Carolina.

- July 25, 1909: Frenchman Louis Bleriot becomes the first person to fly across the English Channel in a plane.

- May 20, 1927: US aviator Charles Lindbergh sets out from Roosevelt Field, Long Island on the first flight across the Atlantic. His "Spirit of St Louis" plane arrived in Paris 33 and a half hours later.

- May 5, 1930: Women were also at the forefront of aviation. Amy Johnson set out to break the light aeroplane record for a solo flight to Australia. She finished the trip in "Gypsy Moth" in just over 19 days.

- May 6, 1937: The world's biggest airship, the 242 metre (800 feet) long LZ129 Hindenburg exploded and crashed to Earth in New Jersey at the end of a flight from Germany, killing 36 people and bringing an end to the airship era.

- August 27, 1939: The first jet powered plane, a Heinkel He178, flies in Nazi Germany. The engine was designed by Hans Von Ohain who with Briton Frank Whittle is considered the pioneer of the jet engine. Whittle's first jet-powered plane took off in 1941.

- October 4, 1957: The Soviet Union launches the first satellite into space, taking an immediate lead in the superpower struggle with the United States to be the first in space. Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space in

- March 2, 1969: Concorde, the first supersonic airliner, makes it's maiden flight in Toulouse. Having revolutionised commercial flight with three and a half hour flights from London to New York, Concorde was retired this year because of rising costs after one crashed in Paris in July 2000.

- July 20, 1969: Neil Armstrong, commander of the US space rocket Apollo 11, becomes the first man to set foot on the Moon. Armstrong and pilot Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin spent 21 hours and 37 minutes on the moon.

- April 12, 1981: The Columbia becomes the first US space shuttle to orbit the Earth. Columbia disintegrated as it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on February 1 this year. The Challenger shuttle exploded on take off on January

SPACE.WIRE