October 14

On the 14th in 1947, United States Air Force pilot Chuck Yeager, at the controls of a Bell Aircraft Corp. X-1 jet, broke the sound barrier in level flight, becoming the first person to do so. After World War 2, when Yeager was asked if he had seen the new jet airplanes entering the scene he responded by saying, "The first time I ever saw a jet, I shot it down."

I don’t mean to downplay the significance of what Yeager did, but he had a bit of an edge in breaking that barrier because he had been given a highly sophisticated, experimental aircraft to play around with when he accomplished that feat. Several years later, fellow pilot and friend Joseph Kittinger also broke the speed of sound and he didn’t need anything nearly as fancy a plane. He did it on August 16, 1960, by simply jumping out of a balloon at the ridiculous altitude of 102,800 feet, which is sort of cheating isn’t it?