February 4: First balloon flight in Antarctica when Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton ascend to 244 meters in a tethered hydrogen balloon to take the first Antarctic aerial photographs.

February 4: Charles Augustus Lindbergh (1902-1974), one of the most famous aviators in history, is born in Detroit, Michigan.

September 20: The Wright brothers make the 1st of nearly 1,000 glides on their modified No. 3 glider in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. It is this glider, made of spruce wood and cloth, which incorporates for the 1st time the flight controls of the modern airplane.

September 22: Stanley Spencer becomes the 1st Englishman to fly in a powered airship over England. The 75-foot-long dirigible is powered by a 3-hp water-cooled engine and makes a flight of 30 miles.