Like the Montgolfier’s balloon this Russian satelite is memorable for one reason; it shuttled the first earthling, a street dog named Laika, into orbit of the earth. On November 3, 1957 Laika passed away from overheating, surviving in space for almost 2 hours. Laika’s death led to other dogs being able to survive the journey and eventually humans. To quote Otto Lilienthal “Sacrifices must be made.”
RIP Laika.

A Masterpiece of industrial design from an era before computers, the Boeing 747 was more than twice the size of any other aircraft when it was launched and stalled any advances in the field. It was so far ahead of it's time that it continues to be produced today. To date the 747 has moved more than 3.5 billion people — the equivalent of half the world’s population. It's most important passanger's have included transporting the President of the United States and ferrying the Space Shuttle, piggyback-style.

While Airplane Technology continued to advance, the upper class enjoyed period of leisurely travel across the Atlantic Ocean by mammoth airships. One of the largest of these at 804 ft was the Zeppelin company’s flagship Hindenburg. On May 6, 1937 the ship caught fire while trying to land in New Jersey. Carrying 97 passengers and crew, 35 of them and one ground worker died in the ensuing crash, one of the first large scale disasters caught in a newsreel.

On May 20, 1927, Charles Lindbergh left Long Island, New York and touched down in Paris, Frace, 33 and half hours later. His plane, The Spirit of St. Louis, was a custom-built, single engine, single-seat monoplane without a windshield. Lindbergh’s ocean crossing signaled to the world that a new era of human flight had begun and the world grew just a little bit smaller that day.

On December 17, 1903, at kitty hawk, humble bicycle shop ownersWilbur & Orville Wright tossed a coin to see who would be the one to test their powered flying machine; the Wright Flyer. Orville won the toss and hopped aboard, while Willbur assisted the takeoff. The plane wouldn’t survive a fourth flight that day but a famous photograph began circulating, cementing the Wrights in history as the first people to make a controlled, powered flight.

Baron Otto Lilienthal was inspired by the cranes flying through the hills that he lived in and went on to create some of the most extensive studies of aerodynamics that are still used to this day. His dream of flying eventually became his downfall. On August 9th 1896, Otto crashed while riding one of his usual gliders. He passed away in a hospital about 36 hours later, his last words: ”Sacrifices must be made!”

On 19 September 1783, the Montgolfier Brothers demonstrated to the public that it was possible to float and leave the earth. Their first Aeronauts were three humble barnyard animals: a sheep called Montauciel (“Climb-to-the-sky”), a duck and a rooster. From this moment on, the race to conquer the sky had begun.