1901: At enormous personal risk, Herr Berson and Professor Süring of the Berliner Verein für Luftschiffahrt establish the first ratified altitude record for balloons. Their 8,510-cu. ft. balloon Preussen (Prussia) ascends to 35,435 feet.
1908: A mysterious explosion occurred in the skies over Siberia. It has since been attributed to comet fragments.
1910: The first airplane bombing tests are made as Glenn H. Curtiss drops dummy bombs from his own Curtiss biplane on the shape of a battleship marked by flagged buoys on Lake Keuka, New York.
1911: The Curtiss A-1 seaplane is tested for the first time by Glenn Curtiss.
1954: A SNCASO S.O. 4000 (prototype of the Sud Vautour fighter-bomber) becomes the first European aircraft to exceed the speed of sound in a shallow dive.
1956: a United Airlines Douglas DC-7 and a Trans World Airlines Lockheed Super Constellation collide in mid-air over the Grand Canyon in Arizona, USA, killing all 128 passengers and crew aboard both airplanes in the deadliest air disaster in history at the time; the crash triggers sweeping changes in the regulations governing cross-country flight over the United States, which would include the creation of the Federal Aviation Agency.
1967: The McDonnell Douglas DC-8-63 receives FAA Certification.
1968: First flight of the Lockheed C-5A Galaxy.
1977: US president Jimmy Carter cancels the B-1 Lancer program.
1989: First flight of the Boeing 737-500.
2010: Arrow Air ceases operations.