Timeline

1910 Raymonde De Laroche (FR), first woman to gain a pilot’s licence

1911 Harriet Quimby, first American female licensed pilot

1914 Russian Princess Eugenie Shakhovskaya, first woman to become a military pilot

1930 Amy Johnson (GB), first female pilot to fly solo from England to Australia

1932 Amelia Earhart (US), first female pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean

1932 Ruth Nichols (US), first female pilot to fly a commercial airliner

1943 Hanna Reitsch (DE), first female pilot to fly a rocket plane, the Messerschmitt 163

1944 Hanna Reitsch (DE), first female pilot to fly a jet aircraft, the Messerschmitt 262

1944 Ann Baumgartner, first American woman to fly a jet aircraft, Bell YB-59

1953 Jacqueline Cochran (US), first female pilot to break the sound barrier, flying an F-86 Sabre

1960 Jerrie Cobb (US), first female pilot to pass US Mercury astronaut testing

1963 Valentina Tereshkova (USSR), first woman in space

1982 Svetlana Savitskaya (USSR), second woman in space

1983 Sally Ride, first American woman and third woman in space

1984 Svetlana Savitskaya (USSR), first woman to walk in space and first woman to go to space twice

1984 Kathryn Sullivan, first American woman to walk in space

1986 Christa McAuliffe (US) chosen to be first teacher in space, died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster

1991 Helen Sharman (GB), first British astronaut and first European woman in space

1992 Roberta Bondar, first Canadian woman in space

1994 Chiaki Mukai, first Japanese woman in space

1995 Eileen Collins (US), first female pilot of a Space Shuttle

1996 Shannon Lucid (US), first American woman to stay on Mir space station, sets endurance record for women and US space endurance record

1999 Eileen Collins (US), first female Space Shuttle Commander

2001 Susan Helms (US), first female member of an ISS Expedition, sets world record for single longest spacewalk, 8 hours, 56 minutes

2001 Claudie Haigneré, first French woman in space, first European woman to visit the ISS

2006 Anousheh Ansari, first Iranian-born woman in space

2007 Sunita Williams (US), sets record for longest spaceflight by a woman, 195 days

2007 Peggy Whitson, first female ISS Expedition commander

2012 Liu Yang, first Chinese woman in space

2012 Sunita Williams (US), sets record cumulative spacewalk time by a female astronaut