1909: Georges Legagneux makes the first airplane flight in Sweden in his Voisin biplane in Stockholm.

1930: The first transatlantic passenger flight takes off from England for Canada. HM Airship R100, a rigid airship, made the 3,300 mile crossing in 78 hours, landing in a suburb of Montreal. Sadly, her sister ship, R101, would crash three months later, killing 48 people, making it the second worst airship crash in history.

1950: a BEA Vickers Viscount makes the first turboprop-powered passenger flight on the route London(Northolt)-Paris(Le Bourget).

1952: A USAF North American RB-45 completes the first non-stop transpacific flight by jet aircraft.

1958: President Eisenhower signs the National Aeronautics and Space Act, creating a new federal agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA’s stated goal is to enable the U.S. to lead the exploration of space for peaceful purposes to benefit humanity.

1959: The first jetway in the U.S. is installed at the International Airport in San Francisco, California. Designed to protect passengers from the weather when they board or leave the jet plane, it is a powered telescopic or collapsible corridor that extends to the aircraft and connects the plane to the terminal. They are commonplace in all airports today.

1959: Qantas introduces the Boeing 707 on its Sydney-San Francisco route, the first transpacific service flown by jet.

1963: First flight of the Tupolev Tu-134.

1966: Freddie Laker commences operations for Laker Airways out of Gatwick Airport.

1967: While sailing off the coast of Vietnam, a malfunction in an F-4 Phantom II jet on the deck of the USS Forrestal causes a rocket to fire inadvertently. The rocket hits another aircraft on the deck (possibly one occupied by Lt. Cmdr. John McCain) without exploding, but does rupture the plane’s fuel tank. The subsequent fire that would eventually ravage the ship, killing 134 sailors and injuring 161 others.

1971: The McDonnell Douglas DC-10 receives FAA Certification.

1985: The eighth flight of Space Shuttle Challenger, and 19th shuttle flight overall, lifts off from Cape Canaveral for mission STS-51-F. Five minutes and 45 seconds into its ascent, main engine number one shuts down due to a malfunctioning high temperature sensor, forcing the crew to abort its originally planned orbit and coast to a lower orbit. Receiving more attention than the Spacelab 2 module on board was the “Carbonated Beverage Dispenser Evaluation,” a test financed by Coca-Cola and Pepsi to determine if carbonated soft drinks could be enjoyed in space using specially designed cans. The verdict: No.

2002: Vanguard Airlines ceases operations. The next day it files for reorganization under Chapter 11 of US bankruptcy law.

2003: The International Space Station’s 1,000th consecutive day of astronauts living on board.