Timeline of Aviation Before the 18th Century

pre-10th century

c 1700 BC
Greek myth of Icarus and Daedalus explores the desire to fly and the inherent dangers of it.
c. 1000 BC
mythical flying machines called Vimanas are mentioned in the Vedas
c. 850 BC
legendary King Bladud attempts to fly over the city of Trinavantum, but falls to his death.
c. 500 BC
the Chinese start to use kites.
c. 400 BC
the often-described pigeon of the Greek mathematician Archytas of Tarentum may have been a kite.
c. 200 BC
the Chinese invented the first hot air balloon: the Kongming lantern
c. 220 BC
the Chinese use kites as rangefinders.
559
Yuan Huangtou, Ye, first manned kite glide to take off from a tower - 559
c. 852
Abbas Ibn Firnas jumped off a tower of the Mosque of Cx³rdoba using a huge wing-like cloak to break his fall. He survived with minor injuries. This was considered to be the first parachute.
c. 875
at an age of 65 years, Abbas Ibn Firnas became the first man in history to make a scientific attempt at flying. He built his own glider, and launched himself from a mountain. The flight was largely successful, and was widely observed by a crowd that he had invited. Although he injured his back landing, his flight time was estimated to run for over ten minutes.

10th-16th century

c. 1000
The glider kite is presumed to have gained currency around the Pacific. It was probably manned and used for military, religious and ceremonial reasons.
c. 1003
Jauhari attempted flight by some apparatus from the roof of a mosque in Nishapur, Khorasan, Iran, and falls to his death as a result.
c. 1010
Eilmer of Malmesbury builds a wooden glider and, launching from a bell tower, glides 200 metres.
1241
The Mongolian army uses lighted kites in the battle of Legnica.
c. 1250
Roger Bacon writes the first known technical description of flight, describing an ornithopter design in his book Secrets of Art and Nature.
1282
Marco Polo reports on manned and ritual kite ascents.
1486 - 1513
Leonardo da Vinci designs an ornithopter with control surfaces. He envisions and sketches flying machines such as helicopters and parachutes, and notes studies of airflows and streamlined shapes.
1496
The Italian Mathematician Giambattista Danti is supposed to have flown from a tower.
c. 1500
Hieronymus Bosch shows in his triptych The temptation of St. Anthony, among other things, two fighting airships above a burning town.
1558
Giambattista della Porta publishes a theory and a construction manual for a kite.

17th century

1630
Evliya x‡elebi reports, that Hezarfen Ahmet Celebi glided with artificial wings from the top of Galata Tower in Istanbul and managed to fly over the Bosphorus, landing successfully on the DoÄŸancılar square in xœskx¼dar.
1633
Evliya x‡elebi reports, that Lagari Hasan x‡elebi flew himself in a rocket artificially-powered by gunpowder.
1638
John Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, suggests some ideas to future would-be pilots in his book The Discovery of a World in the Moon.
1644
Italian physicist Evangelista Torricelli manages to demonstrate atmospheric pressure, and also produces a vacuum.
1654
Physicist and mayor of Magdeburg, Otto von Guericke measures the weight of air and demonstrates his famous Magdeburger Halbkugeln (hemispheres of Magdeburg).Sixteen horses are unable to pull apart two completely airless hemispheres which stick to each other only because of the external air pressure.
1670
Jesuit Francesco Lana de Terzi describes in his treatise Prodomo a vacuum-airship-project, considered the first realistic, technical plan for an airship. However, de Terzi wrote: God will never allow that such a machine be built…because everybody realises that no city would be safe from raids…
1678
Supposed flight of French locksmith Jacob Besnier with a flapping wing machine
1680
Italian physicist Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, the father of biomechanics, showed in his treatise On the movements of animals that the flapping of wings with the muscle power of the human arm can not be successful.
1687
Isaac Newton (1642-1727) published the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, basics of classical physics. In book II he presented the theoretical derivation of the essence of the drag equation.

Gunston, Bill, ed (2001). Aviation Year by Year. Dorling Kindersley. ISBN 0-7894-7986-9. </ref>

Timeline of aviation - 18th century

Timeline of Aviation Before the 18th Century Pictures

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Source: WikiPedia