1901: Wilbur and Orville Wright make the first of a series of test glides at Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Their redesigned biplane glider No. 2 has a larger wing area and wing control worked by a pilot’s hip-cradle device.

1909: Orville Wright makes the first official test flight of the U.S. Army’s first airplane in Fort Meyer, Virginia. President William Howard Taft, his cabinet, and 10,000 spectators witness the flight.

1912: Lieutenant John Rodgers and Ensign Charles Maddox, in a Wright B1 Flyer, send the first wireless message from an airplane to a ship, the torpedo boat USS Stringham, stationed in Annapolis, Maryland.

1923: Edward Stinson lands his Junkers at Mitchell Field in New York after making the first non-stop flight from Chicago.

1931: The Air Line Pilots Association of the USA is formed.

1944: Gloster Meteors of No. 616 Squadron RAF fly their first V1 interception mission.

1949: The de Havilland 106 Comet becomes the world’s first jet airliner to be used in commercial travel.

1953: The Korean War ends.

1967: The McDonnell Douglas DC-8-63 enters service with KLM.

1972: First flight of the McDonnell Douglas YF-15A 71-280.

1976: SR-71 sets 100 KM closed course world speed record at 2092 mph.

1983: First flight of the Embraer EMB 120 Brasilia PT-ZBA.

2002: Su-27 fighter plane crashes into a crowd of spectators at an air show in Sknyliv near Lviv, Ukraine killing 77.

2010: Lufthansa McDonnell Douglas MD-11 D-ALCQ crashes at King Khalid International Airport, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

2011: Asiana B747-400F, HL7604 crashes off of Jeju Island, enroute to Shanghai from ICN. Lithium batteries are a suspected culprit.