On July 28, 1953, Jacqueline Cochran became the first woman to break the sound barrier, piloting an F-86 Sabre on a flight over Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Cochran's biography reads like a dare. Born in poverty in rural Florida circa 1906, abandoned by her parents and raised by a foster family, she was working in a cotton mill at eight, teaching herself to read at a library at night. She trained as a pilot in the 1930s and began entering air races, setting records for speed and altitude that stood for years.

During World War II, she was instrumental in organizing the Women Airforce Service Pilots — the WASPs — who ferried aircraft, towed gunnery targets, and flew test flights, releasing male pilots for combat. She led the American contingent of women pilots ferrying bombers to Britain. She was the first woman to land a bomber at an RAF base.

After the war, the WASPs were disbanded and denied veteran status — a status they did not receive until 1977. Cochran continued breaking records. She was the first woman to fly a jet across the Atlantic. She held more speed, altitude, and distance records than any pilot in aviation history at the time of her death — male or female.

She died in 1980.