Concorde was a supersonic passenger airliner developed jointly by Britain and France, and its first flight took place on 2 March 1969 at Toulouse with the French test pilot André Turcat at the controls. Built by the British Aircraft Corporation and Sud Aviation, it was able to cruise at more than twice the speed of sound, crossing the Atlantic in about three and a half hours. Commercial services began in 1976 with British Airways and Air France, serving mainly New York, but high costs, noise and a limited market kept production small. A crash near Paris in July 2000 was followed by a decline in traffic, and the aircraft were retired in 2003.
Before and after
- 4 January 1969International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
- 14 January 1969Birth of Jason Bateman
- 11 February 1969Birth of Jennifer Aniston
- from 2 March 1969 to 11 September 1969Sino-Soviet border conflict
- 2 March 1969First flight of Concorde
- 3 March 1969Launch of Apollo 9
- 27 March 1969Birth of Mariah Carey
- 28 March 1969Death of Dwight D. Eisenhower
- 14 May 1969Birth of Cate Blanchett
More in Science & technology
- 25 April 1953Watson and Crick publish the structure of DNA
- 14 February 1961Discovery of lawrencium
- 20 November 1985Creation of Microsoft Windows
- 1996Discovery of copernicium
- August 2003Discovery of moscovium
- 2006Discovery of nihonium
The era
This moment belongs to the Contemporary world (1945 CE to today), the world since 1945. You can also browse everything in the 20th century.