Calais, France
(Library of Congress)
French inventor Louis Blériot used the money he made from manufacturing truck headlamps to fund his work creating aircraft – in total, some 780,000 francs. The creator of the first modern monoplane, in 1909 Blériot achieved world fame making the first heavier-than-air-aircraft flight from France to the UK.
Around 20,000 people gathered at either Calais or Dover to witness the attempt. Blériot took off with the sunrise at 4:41 a.m. on July 25. He had no compass and followed an escort ship, the Escopette, but then overtook it and lost sight of both the ship and land. Eventually arriving at the English cliffs, Blériot followed a course along the coast until he saw a man, a journalist from Le Matin, waving a large Tricolour.
The British Daily Mail newspaper awarded him a £1,000 prize for his trouble. This was double the prize they had offered in 1908.
‘I got up at 2:30 in the morning in order to be ready, though I was not feeling well, my foot being painful.
I was dressed in a khaki jacket, lined with wool for warmth, over tweed clothes and beneath my engineer’s suit of blue overalls. A close-fitting cap was fastened over my head and ears. I begin my flight towards the coast of England. I have no apprehension, no sensation.’
Louis Blériot, Evening Star, July 26, 1909
