On this day in 1947, Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier over Mojave Desert.

Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager, a test pilot for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), becomes the first person to break the sound barrier when he flies the experimental Bell X-1 rocket plane over the Mojave Desert in California. The rocket-shaped, single-seat aircraft reached Mach 1.06, which was approximately 700 miles-per-hour (mph) at 26,000 feet above the ground. Yeager was the first human traveling faster than the speed of sound.