The earliest solo transatlantic flight was achieved by Capt. (later Brig. Gen.) Charles Augustus Lindbergh (1902-74) who took off in his 165kW 220-hp Ryan monoplane Spirit of St Louis at 12:52p.m. GMT on 20 May 1927 from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, New York, USA. He landed at 10:21p.m. GMT on 21 May 1927 at Le Bourget Airfield, Paris, France. His flight of 5810km 3610miles lasted 33hr 298min, so winning a prize of $25,000. The aircraft is in the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA. According to Continue reading →

Reinhold Messner (Italy) was the first to successfully climb Mt Everest solo, reaching the summit on 20 August 1980. It took him three days to make the ascent from his base camp at 6,500 m (21,325 ft), and the climb was made all the more difficult by the fact that he did not use bottled oxygen. Messner, with Peter Habeler (Austria) (b. 22 Jul 1942) also made the frst entirely oxygen-less ascent on 8 May 1978.

Anousheh Ansari (Iran) became the first female space tourist on 18 September 2006 when the Soyuz TMA-9 capsule blasted off for a 10-day visit to the International Space Station. Businesswoman Ansari has had a lifelong fascination with space and is thought to have paid $20 million (£10.5 million) for the experience.

The world’s first speedcabling competition was held in Los Angeles, California, USA, in January 2008. The aim of this new “sport”, invented by IT developer Steven Schkolne (USA), is to untangle a mass of cables and wires in the fastest time and in such a way that the wires can still carry a network signal. The winner of the final ­ in which contestants were required to unknot 12 ethernet cords up to 7.5 m (25 ft) long the hold them above their heads ­ Continue reading →

Glass cockpits are characterised by electronic instrument displays, replacing older displays which relied on mechanical gauges to display flight information to the pilot. All three of NASA’s operational shuttles have glass cockpits, the first to receive one being Atlantis, which first flew with the new interface in May 2000 during the STS-101 mission.

In 1997, Star Wars: Monopoly became the first Star Wars game to be based on two official licences. However, it would be 2005’s release of Lego® Stars Wars that would see the first ever inter-license Star Wars game based on the events of the Star Wars movies.

Lemmings was the first Amiga game to offer simultaneous two-player action on a split screen ,on the same computer, with both players using separate mice. Although the multiplayer mode was fun, the two-player head-to-head option has been missing from every version since. Guinness World Records Gamers’ Edition 2009.

Arabella and Anita, two female cross spiders (Araneus diadematus), were sent into space in 1973 on the Skylab 3 mission to the US Skylab space station. The experiment, to see how spiders would spin webs in weightlessness, was suggested by Judy Miles, a US student. While the spiders did indeed construct normal looking webs, the silk was finer than on Earth, and with differences in thickness, unlike terrestrial spider silk, which has uniform thickness.

Francoise Gouleau of France, achieved the first stationary double back somersault in 1905.

On its release in 2000, Star Wars: Force Commander became the first ever Star Wars real-time strategy game. The very first Star Wars strategy game was Star Wars Chess, released in 1993.