Aviation Timeline

First Airplane Drawings

1500

"The Italian artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci made drawings of flying machines with flapping wings."
http://www.b26.com/page/aviation_dates.htm

First Balloon Flight

Sep 19, 1783

"Paper manufacturers Joseph-Michael and Jacques-Ètienne Montgolfier demonstrated the flight of their hot-air balloon.". "It flew for a distance of about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) carrying a basket that held a sheep, a duck, and a rooster.". https://www.livescience.com/59185-key-milestones-in-aviation-history.html

First Successful Model Glider

1804

"Sir George Cayley of Great Britain flew the first successful model glider."
http://www.b26.com/page/aviation_dates.htm

First Airplane Flight

Dec 17, 1903

"Orville Wright performed his first flight near Kill Devil Hills, south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.". The flight's airspeed was 34 miles per hour, and the plane covered a distance of about 120 feet in 12 seconds, before returning to the ground. https://www.livescience.com/59185-key-milestones-in-aviation-history.html

First Airplane Death

Sep 17, 1908

"The first person to die in a plane crash was Thomas Etholen Selfridge (1882–1908), a lieutenant in the U.S. Army." "Everything went smoothly when the plane took off on Sept. 17, 1908, but a propeller failed during its fifth circuit and the craft plummeted nose-first into the ground."
https://www.livescience.com/59185-key-milestones-in-aviation-history.html

First Licensed Women Pilot

Mar 8, 1910

"Baroness Raymonde de la Roche was taught to fly by the French aviation pioneer Charles Voisin, and she became the first woman to receive a pilot's license.". She set a women's altitude record in 1919, reaching a height of 15,700 feet. https://www.livescience.com/59185-key-milestones-in-aviation-history.html

First round-the-world Flight

Sep 24, 1924

Completed by eight U.S. Army Air Service pilots and mechanics, flying four airplanes named after American cities: "Seattle", "Chicago", "Boston" and "New Orleans". "Only two planes completed the journey: "Chicago," piloted by Lowell Smith and Leslie Arnold, and "New Orleans," helmed by Erik Nelson and John Harding Jr.".
https://www.livescience.com/59185-key-milestones-in-aviation-history.html

First Flight Into The Stratosphere

May 27, 1931

"Swiss physicist Auguste Piccard and his assistant Charles Kipfer were the first to ride a balloon into the stratosphere." In a 17-hour flight on May 27, 1931, their balloon ascended to an astounding altitude of 51,775 feet as they traveled from Augsburg, Germany, to the Gurgl glacier in Tyrol, Austria.
https://www.livescience.com/59185-key-milestones-in-aviation-history.html

First Helicopter Flight

Jun 26, 1936

"... aircraft topped with horizontally revolving rotors to provide propulsion and lift — made their first appearance in the 1930s, historian Spencer C. Tucker." https://www.livescience.com/59185-key-milestones-in-aviation-history.html

First African American Combat Pilot

1971

"Eugene Jacques Bullard was born in Georgia in 1895, emigrating to Europe when he was 17 years old by stowing away on a German freighter. He later settled in Paris, joining the French flying service Aéronautique Militaire in 1916 and becoming a pilot in 1917."
https://www.livescience.com/59185-key-milestones-in-aviation-history.html