This timeline © 2002-2005 Jone Johnson Lewis.
1784 - Elisabeth Thible becomes the first woman to fly - in a hot air balloon
1798 - Jeanne Labrosse is the first woman to solo in a balloon
1809 - Marie Madeleine Sopie Blanchard becomes the first woman to lose her life while flying - she was watching fireworks in her hydrogen balloon
1880 - July 4 - Mary Myers is the first American woman to solo in a baloon
1903 - Aida de Acosta is the first woman to solo in a dirigible
1906 - E. Lillian Todd is the first woman to design and build an airplane, though it never flew
1908 - Madame Therese Peltier is the first woman to fly an airplane solo
1910 - Baroness Raymonde de Laroche obtains a license from the Aero Club of France, the first woman licensed in the world
1910 - September 2 - Blanche Stuart Scott, without permission or knowledge of Glenn Curtiss, the airplane's owner and builder, removes a small wood wedge and is able to get the airplane airborne -- without any flying lessons -- thus becoming the first American woman to pilot an airplane
1910 - October 13 - Bessica Raiche's flight qualifies her, for some, as the first woman pilot in America -- because some discount the flight of Scott as accidental and therefore deny her this credit
1910 - Baroness Raymonde de la Roche becomes the first woman in the world to earn her pilot's license
1911 - August 11 - Harriet Quimby becomes the first American woman licensed pilot
1911 - September 4 - Harriet Quimby becomes the first woman to fly at night
1912 - April 16 - Harriet Quimby becomes the first woman to pilot her own aircraft across the English Channel
1913 - Alys McKey Bryant is the first woman pilot in Canada
1916 - Ruth Law sets two American records flying from Chicago to New York
1918 - The US postmaster general approves the appointment of Marjorie Stinson as the first female airmail pilot
1919 - Ruth Law becomes the first person to fly air mail in the Phillipines
1921 - Adrienne Bolland is the first woman to fly over the Andes
1921 - Bessie Coleman becomes the first African American, male or female, to earn a pilot's license
1922 - Lillian Gatlin is the first woman to fly across America as a passenger
1928 - June 17 - Amelia Earhart is the first woman to fly across the Atlantic -- Lou Gordon and Wilmer Stultz did most of the flying
1929 - August - first Women's Air Derby is held, and Louise Thaden wins, Gladys O'Donnell takes second place and Amelia Earhart takes third
1929 - Florence Lowe Barnes - Pancho Barnes - becomes the first woman stunt pilot in motion pictures (in "Hell's Angels")
1929 - Amelia Earhart becomes the first president of the Ninety-Nines, an organization of women pilots.
1930 - May 5-24 - Amy Johnson becomes the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia
1930 - Anne Morrow Lindbergh becomes the first woman to earn a glider pilot license
1931 - Ruth Nichols fails in her attempt to fly solo across the Atlantic, but she breaks the world distance record flying from California to Kentucky
1931 - Katherine Cheung becomes the first woman of Chinese ancestry to earn a pilot's license
1932 - May 20-21 - Amelia Earhart is the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic
1932 - Ruthy Tu becomes first woman pilot in the Chinese Army
1934 - Helen Richey becomes the first woman pilot hired by a regularly schedule airline, Central Airlines
1934 - Jean Batten is the first woman to fly round trip England to Australia
1935 - January 11-23 - Amelia Earhart is the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to the American mainland
1936 - Beryl Markham becomes the first woman to fly across the Atlantic east to west
1936 - Louise Thaden and Blance Noyes beat male pilots also entered in the Bendix Trophy Race, the first victory of women over men in a race in which both men and women could enter
1937 - July 2 - Amelia Earhart lost over Pacific
1938 - Hanna Reitsch becomes the first woman to fly a helicopter and the first woman to be licensed as a helicopter pilot
1939 - Willa Brown, first African American commercial pilot and first African American woman officer in the Civil Air Patrol, helps form the National Airmen's Association of America to help open up the U.S. Armed Forces to African American men
1939 - January 5 - Amelia Earhart declared legally dead
1939 - September 15 - Jacqueline Cochran sets an international speed record; the same year, she is the first woman to make a blind landing
