On July 20, 1969, humans walked on the Moon for the first time.We look back at the legacy of our first small steps on the Moon and look forward to the next giant leap.

May 20, 1932: Amelia Earhart departs Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, in her Lockheed Vega on her solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic. On May 20-21, 1932, Earhart became the first woman—and the only ...

Visit us in Washington, DC and Chantilly, VA to explore hundreds of the world’s most significant objects in aviation and space history. Free timed-entry passes are required for the Museum in DC ...

Learn how the Wright brothers conducted aeronautical research in pursuit of making the first powered airplane.

In 1956, based on the commercialized CJ805-3 version of the military J79 turbojet then powering the Convair 880, GE began development of an aft fan engine, the J79-X220, later designated CJ-805-23.

Otto Lilienthal compiled and published a table of coefficients of lift and drag for the airfoil shape he used on his gliders. The table became quite well known and was the starting point for ...

During the Apollo 11 mission, astronaut Michael Collins did not step foot on the Moon, but the mission would not have been possible without this highly skilled command module pilot Collins spent 27 ...

Visit us in Washington, DC and Chantilly, VA to explore hundreds of the world’s most significant objects in aviation and space history. Free timed-entry passes are required for the Museum in DC. This ...

Wilbur and Orville Wright made history in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. They made the first powered, controlled flight of a heavier-than-air flying machine.

When the National Air and Space Museum opened its doors in July 1976, it featured in its theater a film produced specifically for the Museum called To Fly in a large format called IMAX.

Alan Shepard became the first American and the second man in space on May 5, 1961, when he piloted the Mercury spacecraft Freedom 7 on a 490-kilometer (300-mile), 15-minute suborbital flight.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was a major Cold War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union.