Transatlantic Flight
The first non-stop transatlantic flight took place in June 1919 when Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown set off in a modified Vickers Vimy. The two British men took off from Lester's Field, near St. Johns, Newfoundland on June 14, 1919, and landed 16 hours, 27 minutes later on June 15, 1919, at Clifden in Ireland.

The flight was difficult – freezing fog, a snowstorm, engine trouble and ice. But eventually they spotted land and headed for an invitingly green meadow. Men in a nearby transmitter tower tried to warn them not to land but Alcock thought they were waving a welcome and brought the plane down straight into a bog. In this shot, the Vimy rests the day after the momentous flight, its nose buried deep into the mud.

For more on this momentous Vickers Vimy flight, see the James May's 20th Century gallery.