1905: In Santa Clara, California, Daniel Maloney is launched from a tethered balloon to make a free flight in a tandem-wing glider, which “Professor” Montgomery, a schoolteacher and keen amateur aviator, has designed.

1931: The Boeing B-9 bomber flies for the first time and marks the next step in airframe development in the evolution of the Boeing 247, the first modern-type airliner.

1961: Saturn booster firing of 30 seconds using timer at predetermined setting was successful in flight qualification test.

1964: British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) introduces the VC10 jet airliner into regular passenger service, on its route to Lagos, Nigeria.

1968: United Air Lines becomes the first carrier to put the Boeing 737-200, a larger capacity version of the standard 737, into service.

1982: An Avro Vulcan bomber deploys to Ascension Island as part of the Falklands War build-up of British forces in the South Atlantic Ocean.

1984: TWA starts services to ten new cities in one day, the largest single day expansion in the carrier's history.

1988: The first flight of the Boeing 747-400 is made. This Advanced Superjet has a crew of two and can carry between 412 and 509 passengers over 8,000 miles. Sales in 1990 of 170 of these wide-body transports broke all records.

1988: The Airbus A320 enters service with British Airways.

2002: First flight of the Saab JAS 39C Gripen.

2013: National Airlines Flight 102, a Boeing 747 freighter, stalls and crashes shortly after takeoff from Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, due to load shifting, killing all seven crew members on board.