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Archytas, a Greek philosopher and mathematician, showed off a wooden pigeon that was suspended on wires. The pigeon was pushed around by escaping steam.
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The Hero of Alexandria is said to have used the aeolipile at around 100 BC. The sphere-shaped device sat on top of a boiling pool of water. Gas from the steaming water went inside of the sphere, and escaped through two L-shaped tubes on opposite sides. The thrust created made the sphere rotate.
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The Chinese are recorded as using the first real rockets around the first century A.D. They were used for colorful displays during religious festivals, sort of like today's fireworks.
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First used between the years 1200 and 1300 in Asia, using a propellant that included a mix of saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal. These rockets were used during the war between the Chinese and the Mongols.
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For the next few hundred years, rockets were mainly used for military purposes, including a version called the Congreve rocket in the early 1800s.
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As guns became more effective, the use of rockets was reduced until World War II, when the Germans used their V-2 rockets routinely to bombard Britain from the safety of their own country.
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This was the first French expendable launch system was also the first one to be made by neither the US or USSR. the Diamant was used to put the first French satellite, Astérix, into orbit on November 26, 1965.
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First designed by NASA. This orbiter that had failed due to one of the O-Rings sealing in its right solid rocket booster. This led to the destruction of the Challenger.
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An expendable launch system that became the first privately-developed liquid-fuel launch vehicle to go into orbit around the Earth. It has been succeeded by the Falcon 9.
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A rocket where the first stage of it is designed to be reusable. It has been able to transport medium to heavy cargo into low Earth orbit.
