1784: James Sadler becomes the 1st British aeronaut when he makes a flight in a Montgolfier-type balloon of a 170-foot circumference
1909: More than a million New Yorkers watch as Wilbur Wright makes a flight along the Hudson River.
1957: The Avro Arrow rolls out at the Avro Canada plant in Malton, Ontario.
1957: The Soviets win round one of the Space Race, launching Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.
1958: Britain’s national overseas airline BOAC becomes the 1st carrier to fly the Atlantic route by jet airliner.
1960: Eastern Airlines Flight 375, a Lockheed L188 Electra (registered N5533) flying from Boston Logan (BOS) to Philadelphia (PHL) crashes seconds after takeoff due to a bird strike, killing 62 of the 72 on-board.
1968: First flight of the Tupolev Tu-154.
1982: Death of Leroy Randle "Roy" Grumman (b.4 January 1895) was an American aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and industrialist.
1984: After her husband dies at the controls, 61-year-old Elaine Yadwin safely lands a Piper Cherokee Warrior II in Florida.
1992: El Al Flight 1862, a 747-200F (registered (4X-AXG), crashes into an apartment complex in Amsterdam, killing 4 on the aircraft and 39 on the ground after engines number 3 and 4 fall from the wing. It would be determined that fuse pins designed to let separating engines break away clean had failed to do so, allowing the number 3 engine’s loss to also cause the number 4 engine to separate as well. This caused damage to the flaps and right aileron that sent the aircraft into an 90-degree roll while attempting to slow down for their second landing attempt.
2001: Siberian Airlines Flight 1812, a Tu-154 (registered RA-85693), is struck by an errant Ukranian missile, sending it crashing into the Black Sea, killing all 78 on-board.
2004: Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne makes its third successful flight into space, thus clinching the $10 million Ansari X Prize.
2010: Sociedad Aeronautica de Medellin (SAM) ceases operations.