Aviatrix Bessie Coleman, circa 1925. The New York Public Library
DURING BESSIE'S LIFE
1892 Bessie Coleman is born
1897 Amelia Earhart is born
1901 Bessie's father leaves the family
1903 Wright Brothers invent the first successful airplane
1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria is assassinated (June)
1914 Start of World War One (July)
1915 Bessie moves to Chicago
1918 End of World War One
1920 Bessie moves to France
1921 Bessie earns her pilot's license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (June)
1921 Bessie moves back to the US and starts her barnstorming career (September)
1922 Bessie performs the first public flight by an African American woman in the US
1923 Amelia Earhart earns her pilot's license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale
1926 Bessie dies in plane crash at age 34
AFTER BESSIE'S DEATH
1931 The Five Blackbirds (first all-black aerobatic troupe) is formed
1932 The Flying Hobos (James Herman Banning and Thomas C. Allen) perform the first transcontinental flight (from Los Angeles to New York) by black airmen
1937 Amelia Earhart disappears at age 39
1941 All-black 99th Pursuit Squadron of the U.S. Army Air Corps (Tuskegee Airmen) is formed
1975 Bessie Coleman Aviators Club is founded
1995 U.S. Postal Service issues Bessie Coleman stamp
2006 Bessie Coleman is enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame (NAHF), 40 years after its founding