Timeline: Spaceflight History | Timetoast

Jun 20, 1944

First object in space (V-2, Nazi Germany)
Oct 4, 1957

First satellite in orbit (Sputnik-1, USSR)
Apr 12, 1961

First man in space (Yuri Gagarin, USSR)
May 5, 1961

First American man in space (Alan Shepard, US)
Sep 12, 1962

JFK's "We Choose" speech
Jun 13, 1963

First woman in space (Valentina Tereshkova, USSR)
Mar 18, 1965

first space walk (Aleksey Leonov, USSR)
Jun 3, 1965

First American spacewalk (Ed White, US)
Mar 16, 1966

Gemini 8 incident (US)
Jan 27, 1967

Apollo 1 fire (US)
Dec 21, 1968

First manned Lunar orbit (Apollo 8, US)
Jul 3, 1969

Soviet Moon rocket explosion (N1-L3, USSR)
Jul 20, 1969

First man on the Moon (Neil Armstrong, US)
Apr 11, 1970

Apollo 13 Disaster (US)
Apr 19, 1971

First space station (Salyut 1, USSR)
Jun 6, 1971

Soyuz 11 disaster (USSR)
May 14, 1973

First American space station (Skylab, US)
Jul 15, 1975

First international space mission (ASTP, US & USSR)
Apr 12, 1981

First launch of a reusable space-plane launch (STS-1, US)
Jun 18, 1983

First US woman in space (Sally Ride)
Jan 28, 1986

Challenger disaster (STS-51L, US)
Nov 15, 1988

First and only launch of Soviet space-plane (1K1, USSR)
Apr 24, 1990

Hubble space telescope put in orbit (US)
Nov 20, 1998

First ISS module is launched (Zarya)
Mar 14, 2002

SpaceX founding
Feb 1, 2003

Columbia disaster (STS-107, US)
Apr 8, 2016

First recovery of a reusable rocket booster (SpaceX)
May 14, 2019

Artemis announcement to return to the Moon (US)
Nov 16, 2021

First SLS launch (Artemis 1, US)
Nov 26, 2021

ISS completion (US, RUS, JAP, EU)
Apr 30, 2023

First Starship launch (IFT-1, SpaceX)