| The idea of flying has sparked the imagination of | | | | century, advancements both in engine technology |
| mankind for centuries or even millennia. The first | | | | and the understanding of aerodynamics made |
| man-made flying objects were not airplanes but kites; | | | | powered, controllable flight possible. |
| records of kite flying date back as early to 200 B.C. | | | | The Wright Brothers began working with gliders and |
| in China, and rudimentary hot air balloons were first | | | | other unpowered flight methods around the turn of |
| designed about the same time. Leonardo da Vinci | | | | the century, and are widely recognized to have the |
| famously designed several aircraft in the fifteenth | | | | first sustained, controlled, and powered flight of a |
| century, but never tried to construct or fly them. | | | | heavier-than-air aircraft flown by a pilot, accomplishing |
| All of the aircraft that were shown to work up to | | | | this feat near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903. By |
| the eighteenth and mid nineteenth centuries were | | | | 1905, their airplane designs could be flown for |
| lighter than air, a significant difference from the | | | | upwards of 40 minutes or 30 miles in a single flight. |
| heavier-than-air aircraft that would be developed in | | | | The development of aircraft grew exponentially as a |
| the twentieth century. Important mechanisms that | | | | response to World War I, during which time aircraft |
| would later be used for propelling and controlling | | | | were used for military flights, including both |
| aircraft were developed during this period, even if | | | | reconnaissance flights and the world's first fighter |
| the overall designs themselves were flawed and | | | | planes. |
| unsuccessful. | | | | Development of the jet engine began in the 1930s, |
| By the close of the nineteenth century, the idea of | | | | mainly in Germany and in England. Both countries |
| flying had captured the attention of the world, and | | | | would have working jet aircraft by the end of World |
| multiple aviation pioneers built various aircraft that | | | | War II. After the war, the aircraft industry turned |
| managed to become airborne, if even just for a | | | | towards the civilian market, considered the dawn of |
| second or two, predating the Wright Brothers' | | | | what would be known as the jet age. The first |
| famous flight by up to 30 years. Multiple pioneers | | | | commercial jet airliners were put into service by the |
| were working on both lighter-than-air and | | | | end of the 1940s. Regular jet service was available |
| heavier-than-air aircraft concurrently, using hundreds | | | | by the mid 1950s, ushering in the age of mass |
| of imaginative designs with varying degrees of | | | | commercial air travel. |
| success. Gustave Whitehead, for example, reportedly | | | | By the start of the 1960s, aircraft were no longer |
| flew his engine-powered, heavier-than-air design for a | | | | restricted to flights beginning and ending on land, as |
| distance of 800 meters at 15 meters height as early | | | | the first space flights became possible and the space |
| as 1901 or 1902, preceding the Wright Brothers' | | | | race began. Russia's Sputnik 1, launched in 1957, |
| famous flight at Kitty Hawk by more than two years. | | | | started a new era of flight, culminating in the first |
| Other inventors also claimed to have achieved flight | | | | manned moon landing in 1969. |
| between 1900 and 1910. By the early twentieth | | | | |