While the first person to break the sound barrier was Chuck Yeager on October 14, 1947, it wasn’t until 1953 that a woman also achieved this feat. She was Jacqueline Cochran, an American who had just turned 46.

Abandoned by her parents at an early age and taken in by a family of farmers, she had only ever dreamed of flying.

Self-taught (she didn’t go to school and taught herself to read), she made her first flight at the age of 25 and soon took part in her first races.

From 1940 onwards, she began to break record after record, starting with the speed record held by the Frenchwoman Hélène Boucher (yes, it was a woman who held the all-category speed record!). She joined the army and was the first woman to fly a bomber on a transatlantic route, commanding the “Women Airforce Service Pilots”.

She resumed her hunt for records after the war, helped by her husband, a businessman and shareholder in aircraft manufacturer Canadair, Floyd Odlum. To stack the odds in her favor, she asks Chuck Yeager himself to advise her in her quest for the sound barrier.

So, on May 15 1953, she made it aboard a North American F-86 Sabre built by…Canadair. She reached a speed of 1049 km/h, beating the Frenchwoman Jacqueline Auriol who held the previous women’s record. She improved her speed record 6 times.

She broke her last record at the age of 57 in 1964, reaching 2095 km/h.

She then gave up the competition to embark on a political career, where she would not enjoy the same success, as she was not elected.