Boom!

Chuck Yeager became the first human being to fly an airplane faster than the speed of sound in controlled flight on this day 70 years ago. Before him, it's certainly possible that some planes headed into steep dives passed the sound speed mark, but they were rarely controlled when doing so and the fact that they often plunged into the ground made confirming their airspeed difficult.

A couple of years ago, Yeager Tweeted some of his memories of the flight and the tests leading up to it. He's apparently still pretty sharp at 94 and continues to make appearances today, and obviously has fun with Twitter. Although unlike the venomous charlatan (™George Will) in the White House, other people have fun with his Tweets as well.