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The first untethered manned hot air balloon flight was on 21 November 1783 in Paris, France in a balloon created by the Montgolfier brothers.
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George Cayley’s biplane design is published.
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Otto Lilienthal flies biplane gliders.
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Wilbur and Orville Wright spent four years of research and development to create the first successful powered airplane, the 1903 Wright Flyer.
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Richard Pearse from New Zealand makes his first recorded powered flight of more than a few seconds, though witnesses contend his first flight may have been just before the Wright brothers.
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Alberto Santos-Dumont makes the first successful powered flight in Europe.
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Kiwi aviator George Bolt’s flying career began in the South Island in 1911. Aged just 18, he launched a glider that he had designed and built himself from the Cashmere Hills above Christchurch. In 1911 Bolt took New Zealand’s first aerial photographs. In 1916 he began work as an apprentice mechanic at the Walsh brothers’ New Zealand Flying School in Auckland.
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Bessie Coleman became the first African-American to gain a pilot’s license.