Around 1490

• Leonardo da Vinci envisions and sketches flying machines such as helicopters.

1809

• September: Sir George Cayley published his seminal paper On Aerial Navigation, setting out for the first time the scientific principles of heavier-than-air flight.

1853

• Late June or early July: Sir George Cayley's coachman became the world's first aeroplane pilot, flying a glider designed by his employer for 423ft (130m) across a valley in Brompton, Yorkshire.

1890s

• Otto Lilienthal: first controlled glider flights. Often called the first pilot. Breaks his spine on the 2500th flight.

1890

• Clement Ader: first powered heavier-than-air flight (but uncontrolled).

1894

• November: Lawrence Hargrave demonstrates stable flight with a tethered box kite.

1903

• March 31 : Richard Pearse reputed to have made an uncontrolled powered flight in a heavier-than-air craft, a monoplane of his own construction, that crash lands on a hedge. (This date is computed from circumstantial evidence of eyewitnesses as the flight was not well-documented at the time.)
• August: Karl Jatho flies up to 200 feet in a powered heavier-than-air craft
• December: After years of dedicated research and development, the brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright fly 300 yards in a more practical aeroplane. This is the first photographed powered heavier-than-air flight.

1906

• March: Traian Vuia: first fully self-powered flight (Wright brothers needed headwinds or catapults).
• October: Alberto Santos-Dumont: first official flight.

1907

• Paul Cornu: first helicopter flight (just a hop though)

1909

• July: Louis Blériot flew the English Channel.

1910

• October: Romanian inventor Henri Coanda (1886-1972), constructed the first jet engine in the world, named the Coanda-1910, exhibited at the International Aeronautical Show in Paris and tested near Paris.

1911

• First coast-to-coast airplane flight across the USA by the Vin Fiz Flyer - taking 49 days, with several crashes en-route.

1918

• Planes at war: Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen, called `Red Baron' and `ace of aces', claims 80th victory, and finally is shot down

1919

• May: A US Navy flying boat NC-4 flew by short stages from Long Island, New York to Lisbon, Portugal over 19 days.
• June: John Alcock and Arthur Brown completed the first non-stop Atlantic crossing, flying a Vickers Vimy from Newfoundland to Ireland in 16 hours.

1923

• May: The first non-stop USA coast-to-coast flight.

1927

• May 20-May 21: Charles Lindbergh flew the Atlantic nonstop and solo, direct from New York City to Paris.

1928

• May: Charles Kingsford-Smith, Ulm, Lyon and Warner flew the Southern Cross, a modified Fokker Trimotor from San Francisco to Brisbane; the first air crossing of the Pacific.

1936

• Focke FA-61: first satisfactory helicopter by Henrich Focke (Germany)

1939

• Heinkel He-178: first jetplane by Ernst Heinkel and Pabst von Ohain, piloted by Erich Warsitz

1942

• Messerschmitt Me 262: first jet fighter, piloted by Fritz Wendel. Fastest airplane of WW II. Mass production started in 1944, too late for a decisive impact.

1947

• October: Chuck Yeager took the rocket-powered Bell X-1 past the speed of sound.

1948

• July 14: Six de Havilland Vampire F3s of RAF No 54 Squadron, commanded by Wg Cdr D S Wilson-MacDonald, DSO, DFC, became the first jet aircraft to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. They went via Stornoway, Iceland and Labrador to Montreal on the first leg of a goodwill tour of Canada and the US where they gave several formation aerobatic displays.

1961

• First space flight by Yuri Gagarin, once around the planet within 108 minutes

1977

• August: Gossamer Condor became the first human-powered aeroplane, flying a figure-8 course to demonstrate sustained, controlled flight.

1974

• September: A SR-71 Blackbird crossed the Atlantic Ocean in less than two hours.

1986

• December: First non-stop flight around the planet without refueling.

See also: Aviation history