Famous Firsts: Exploration 1
1. Summiting Mount Everest (29th May 1953)
The 1953 British Mount Everest expedition was the ninth mountaineering expedition to attempt the first ascent of Mount Everest, and the first confirmed to have succeeded when Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit on Friday, 29 May 1953.
2. Reaching The South Pole (14th Decemeber 1911)
The first expedition to reach the geographic South Pole was led by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. He and four others arrived at the pole on 14 December 1911, five weeks ahead of a British party led by Robert Falcon Scott as part of the Terra Nova Expedition. Amundsen and his team returned safely to their base, and later learned that Scott and his four companions had died on their return journey.
3. Humans On The Moon (20th July 1969)
Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first humans on the Moon, Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, on July 20, 1969, at 20:18 UTC. Armstrong became the first to step onto the lunar surface six hours later on July 21 at 02:56 UTC. Armstrong spent about two and a half hours outside the spacecraft, Aldrin slightly less, and together they collected 47.5 pounds (21.5 kg) of lunar material for return to Earth.
4. Manned Heavier Than Air Flight (17th Decemeber 1903)
The Wright Flyer (often retrospectively referred to as Flyer I or 1903 Flyer) is the first successful powered aircraft, designed and built by the Wright brothers. They flew it four times on December 17, 1903, near Kill Devil Hills, about four miles south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, U.S. Today, the airplane is exhibited in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C.
5. Transatlantic Flight (14th-15th June 1909)
British aviators John Alcock and Arthur Brown made the first non-stop transatlantic flight in June 1919.[1] They flew a modified First World WarVickers Vimy[2] bomber from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Clifden, Connemara, County Galway, Ireland.
6. Decent Of The Mariana Trench (23rd January 1960)
Trieste is a Swiss-designed, Italian-built deep-diving research bathyscaphe. On 23 January 1960, Jacques Piccard (son of the boat's designer Auguste Piccard) and US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh achieved the goal of reaching a record maximum depth of about 10,911 metres (35,797 ft), in the deepest known part of the Earth's oceans, the Challenger Deep, in the Mariana Trench near Guam in the Pacific.
7. Circumnavigation Of The World (1519-1522)
The first single voyage of global circumnavigation was that of the ship Victoria, between 1519 and 1522, known as the Magellan–Elcano expedition. It was a Spanish voyage of discovery led initially byFerdinand Magellan between 1519 and 1521, and then by Juan Sebastián Elcano from 1521 to 1522.
8. Transpacific Flight (31st May-9th June 1928)
Sir Charles Edward Kingsford Smith MC, AFC (9 February 1897 – 8 November 1935), often called by his nickname Smithy, was an early Australian aviator. In 1928, he earned global fame when he made the first trans-Pacific flight from the United States toAustralia.
9. Flight Around The World (4th April-28th September 1924)
The first aerial circumnavigation of the world was conducted in 1924 by a team of aviators of the United States Army Air Service, the precursor of the United States Air Force. The trip took 175 days, covering over 27,553 miles (44,342 km).
10. Non-Stop Flight Around The World (26th February-2nd March 1949)
In 1949, the United States Air Force B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II made the first non-stop aerial circumnavigation in 94 hours and 1 minute. Four in-air refuelings were required for the flight, which covered 37,743 kilometres (23,452 mi)
