V-2: the first rocket to reach space
1942 · Event
Von Braun's A-4 climbs to the edge of space from Peenemünde — a weapon built by slave labour that killed thousands in London and Antwerp, and the direct ancestor of every launcher since.
On these timelines: Spaceflight, Master, Science & Technology, World War II, Germany
More from Spaceflight
- Apollo 8 orbits the Moon (1968)
- Goddard launches the first liquid-fuel rocket (1926)
- First Space Shuttle flight (1981)
- Apollo 17: the last Moon landing (1972)
- Tsiolkovsky's rocket equation (1903)
- First spacewalk (1965)
- Mir space station (1986)
- Shenzhou 5: China's first astronaut (2003)
Around 1942
- Apartheid (1948)
- Decolonisation of Africa (1952)
- Chinese Civil War (resumed) (1945)
- Indian independence and Partition (1947)
- Korean War (1950)
- Manhattan Project (1942)
- World War II (1939)
- Battle of Britain (1940)
- The Holocaust (1941)
- Battle of Stalingrad (1942)