Aviation in pre-10th century
1700 BC- Flying is first mentioned in the Greek mythology when Daedalus, a skilled craftsman, made wings for himself and his son Icarus, to escape the island of Crete.
1000 BC- Vimanas or flying machines are mentioned several times in scripts of Hindu mythology like Vedas, Ramayana and Mahabharata.
850 BC- Legends say that King Bladud, who was the king of Britons (historical), created wings for himself to fly from the Apollo temple in New Troy or Trinovantum, but dies when he hits a wall.
500 BC- Chinese people start flying kites using silk and bamboo. The kites are supposed to be invented by Mozi and Lu Ban, the famous Chinese philosophers.
400 BC- Archytas, a Greek mathematician, builds the first self-propelled flying object called as The Pigeon. But scientists suspect the device to be a kite.
200 BC- According to legends, the Chinese military strategist and sage Zhuge Liang (who was respectfully called Kongming) invents the Kongming lantern, the first hot air balloon.
220 BC- Kites are used as rangefinders by Chinese.
Aviation in 10th–16th century
1000- Manned glider kites are supposed to have acquired momentum along the Pacific and were presumed to be used for religious, ceremonial and military reaons.
1003– Jauhari, an Arabian lexicographer falls to his death while attempting to fly, probably using a glider, from a mosque rooftop of in Iran.
1010– An English Benedictine monk, Eilmer of Malmesbury glides for two hundred meters from top of a tower, in his self built wooden glider, before falling and getting crippled for life.
1241– Lighted kites are used by Mongols in the battle of Legnitz (or Legnica), which was fought between the combined Europeans forces (Poles, Germans and Czechs) and the Mongols.
1250– A first known technical report of a flight is written by Robert Bacon, an English philosopher. In his work Secrets of Art and Nature, Bacon describes an ornithopter design.
1282– Marco Polo writes about the kite flying rituals in his writings.
1486-1513 – An ornithopter is designed by Leonardo da Vinci designs. He also sketches and makes notes of flying machines like parachutes, helicopters, etc.
1496- Giambattista Danti, a mathematician from Venice, Italy is presumed to have constructed a glider and flown down from a towertop.
1500- An Early Netherlandish painter, Hieronymus Bosch shows fighting airships in his ‘The temptations of St. Anthony’ triptych.
1558– A construction and theory manual of a kite is published by Italian scholar Giambattista della Porta.
Aviation in 17th century
1630- Evliya Celebi, a Turkish traveler reports that Hezaefe Ahmet Celebi glides with artificial wings from the Galata Tower over Bosphorus strait and lands successfully at Dogancılar square in Uskudar.
1633- Evliya Celebi reports that Laagri Hasan Celebi flies himself in a gunpowder powered rocket.
1638– In his book The Discovery of a World in the Moon, John Wilkins suggests some concepts to the future would-be-pilots.
1644– Evangelista, an Italian physicist produces vacuum and shows demonstration of atmospheric pressure.
1654- German physicist Otto von Guericke shows demonstration of his renowned Hemispheres of Magdeburg (Magdeburger Halbkugeln). He joins two 51 cm copper hemispheres and pumps out the air. He then shows that 8 horses harnessed to each hemisphere cannot pull the vacuum hemispheres apart.
1670– Italian Jesuit and aeronautics innovator, Francesco Lana de Terzi publishes a book Prodomo in which he describes a vacuum airship, which is considered to be the first technical description of an airship.
1678- Jacob Besnier, a locksmith from France, supposedly flies with a machine having flapping wings.
1680– Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, an Italian mathematician and physicist, in his writing On the movements of animals shows that human arm do not have enough muscle power to successfully flap the wings .
1687– In the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica book II, Isaac Newton presents the basic drag equation of theoretical derivation.
