1 January
The first pilot's licences are issued by the Aéro Club de France. A list of 16 licence holders was published in alphabetical order; unfortunately it missed out Charles Voisin (the first man to fly in France) and included some people who had never flown at all!

January
Igor Sikorsky begins work on a second helicopter.

January
Captain G.W.P. Dawes and J.V. Neale both crash when making the first aeroplane flights in Egypt in their Blériot monoplanes.

January
Colin Defries makes the first aeroplane flight in Australia, flying a Wright biplane at Sydney.

7 January
Hubert Latham makes the first flight to an altitude over 1,000 metres (2,281 feet) at Chalons in France when he flies an Antoinette VII to 3,280 feet.

10 January
The first United States aeroplane meeting is held at the Dominquez Field in Los Angeles and organised by the Aero Club of California.

19 January
Lieutenant Paul Beck drops sandbag "bombs" over Los Angeles from an aeroplane piloted by Louis Paulhan.

February
Hugo Junkers patents an aeroplane with a cantilevered wing.

8 March
Mademoiselle Elise Deroche, better known under her self awarded title 'la Baronne de Laroche', becomes the world's first qualified female pilot and the 36th French pilot, when she is awarded her brevet.

10 March
Frenchman Emil Aubrun makes the world's first night flights in a Blériot monoplane at Villalugano in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

10 March
William W. Gibson, of British Colombia, finishes work on the engine for the Gibson Twin-plane.

13 March
The first aeroplane flight in Switzerland is made by Captain Engelhardt in a Wright A biplane from an ice covered lake at St Moritz.

20 March
Gaspard-Felix Tournachon, alias Nadar, the photographer and balloonist, dies. He had taken the first aerial (balloon) photographs in 1863.

26 March
Plans for Aeropolis, an aerodrome at Le Bourget in France, are announced.

28 March
Frenchman Henri Fabre makes the world's first take-off from water at La Mede harbour near Marseilles. in the 'Hydravion', a powered seaplane.

April
The French Army forms a 'Service Aéronautique'.

April
Two Japanese army officers, Captain Tokugawa and Humazo Hino, are sent to France and Germany respectively to learn to fly.

30 April
Alberto Santos-Dumont retires from flying, suffering from multiple sclerosis.

7 May
The Antoinette Company builds a simulator at Mourmelon air school for pilots to practice the controls of an Antoinette monoplane.

18 May
International talks open in Paris to form a legal basis for flight between countries.

21 May
Frenchman Jacques de Lesseps wins 12,500 francs for a 37 minute flight from Calais and the £100 Daily Mail cup for the second English Channel flight.

24 May
Prince Charles of Romania becomes the first royal aeroplane passenger, in a Farman piloted by M. Osmontat at Bucharest.

25 May
The Wright brothers fly together for the first time at Dayton in Ohio.

27 May
Italian Ugo Tabachi pilots the first trial flight of the Caproni Ca1 monoplane, built by Gianni Caproni.

6 June
Robert Martinet wins the first cross-country air race between Angers and Saumur in France, a distance of 27 miles, in a Farman aeroplane.

9 June
The first aircraft reconnaissance is made by Captain Marconnet and Lieutenant Fequant of the French Army. They used a single seat Henri Farman biplane on a 2½ hour, 145 kilometre flight from Camp de Châlons at Mourmelon to Vincennes. Fequart piloted the aircraft while Marconnet, armed with a hand held camera, squeezed into a narrow space between the seat and the engine. During the flight, photographs were taken of roads, railways, towns and the countryside.

10 June
The French Army obtain a Wright biplane.

13 June
Charles Hamilton wins the New York Times' $10,000 prize for a return flight between New York and Philadelphia.

17 June
The Vlaicu I parasol monoplane makes it's first flight in Romania.

17 June
Zeppelin LZ7 'Deutschland' begins passenger services in Germany.

30 June
American Glenn Hammond Curtiss drops dummy bombs on the shape of a battleship marked out on Lake Keuka.

7 July
The Belgian war ministry establishes a flying corps.

10 July
The first flight at an altitude of over a mile is made by Walter Brookins, flying at 1,900 metres (6,234 feet) in a Wright biplane in Indianapolis, USA.

13 July
A German Erbslon non-rigid airship explodes near Opladen, killing five people.

21 July
The Wright brothers begin experimenting with wheeled landing gears.

24 July
German August Euler patents a machine-gun armament arrangement for an aeroplane.

August
Harry Ferguson pilots the first passenger flight to be flown in Ireland.

8 August
The first aircraft tricycle landing-gear is installed, on a United States Army Wright biplane.

17 August
Franco American John B. Mosiant's mechanic becomes the first passenger to fly across the English Channel, in a Blériot monoplane.

20 August
Lieutenant Jacob Earl Fickel of the United States Army, fires the first shots from an aeroplane at Sheepshead Bay in New York State. He fires a Springfield rifle at a target from the passenger seat of a Curtiss biplane.

27 August
The first aircraft radio is used in an aeroplane which flew over the race track at Sheepshead Bay in New York. The aircraft was piloted by a Canadian, J.A.D. McCurdy, who transmitted the following message, which was received by a ground station operated by H.M. Horton. "Another chapter in aerial achievement is hereby written in the receiving of this first message ever recorded from an aeroplane in flight".

28 August
Swiss Armand Dufaux flies the length of Lake Geneva, a distance of 41 miles, in his tractor biplane. He takes 56 minutes to win the 5,000 Swiss franc prize.

2 September
Blanche Scott becomes the first American female pilot to fly solo, at Lake Keuka in Hammondsport, New York State.

6 September
John Moisant wins the Daily Mail £50 prize for a flight from Paris to London.

8 September
The first recorded aerial collision occurs when two brothers named Warchalovski crash in Austria.

14 September
Zeppelin LZ6 is destroyed by fire at Boden-Oos.

14 September
The French Army use nine aeroplanes in manoeuvres as Henry Farman sets up an army flying school.

23 September
Peruvian Georges Chavez flies over the Alps, from Brig to Domodossola, in a Blériot monoplane but is killed when he crash-lands.

27 September
Roger Sommer flies in his unique twin-engined biplane.

October
Romanian Henri Coanda exhibits a propellerless biplane. It fails.

October
The first fighter aircraft, a Voisin biplane fitted with a machine gun, is exhibited at the Paris Aero Show.

2 October
The first officially recorded mid-air collision between two aeroplanes occurs in Milan. An Antoinette piloted by Rene Thomas strikes a Henry Farman biplane piloted by Englishman Captain Bertram Dickson. Both pilots survived.

15 October
American Walter Wellman attempts to fly across the North Atlantic in his airship 'America'. The flight fails and the crew is rescued at sea.

11 October
Ex-President Teddy Roosevelt becomes the first United States president to fly when he is taken up at St Louis.

22 October
The Aéronautique Militaire is formed from the French Service Aéronautique.

23 October
The Infante Don Alfonso of Orleans and Bourbon becomes the first royal pilot. A cousin of King Alfonso of Spain, he learnt to fly on an Antoinette monoplane at Mourmelon in France. He was a lieutenant in the Spanish Army at the time.

26 October
A Lebaudy airship purchased by the British government flies a 230 mile flight from Aldershot to Moisson in France.

28 October
Monsieur Tabuteau performs a closed circuit record of 465 kilometres(289 miles) in a Maurice Farman biplane, ending the supremacy of the Wright biplanes.

7 November
The world's first freight-carrying flight occurs when Philip O. Palmalee pilots a Wright Model B biplane, transporting silk from Dayton to Columbus in Ohio, for the Morehouse-Martens Company.

14 November
Exhibition pilot Eugène Ely makes the first take-off from a ship, using a temporary flight deck on the cruiser USS Birmingham. The ship was at anchor in Chesapeake Bay. The pilot flew his Curtiss Hudson Flier biplane 2½ miles to Willoughby Spit near Norfolk in Virginia to land.

23 November
Octave Chanute dies aged 78, having played an important role in the advancement of aviation.

December
In India, the British Army is impressed by a demonstration of three biplanes by the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company.

3 December
Gaston Cugnet crashes his Blériot monoplane while demonstrating it at Melbourne Cricket Ground.

10 December
Romanian Henri Coanda makes a brief flight in the world's first jet-powered aeroplane. It is powered by a 37kW (50 horse-power) Clerget piston engine driving a centrifugal air compressor.

31 December
John Moisant is killed when his aeroplane crashes at New Orleans.

Also this year...
The following air services are established:

• Imperial Russian Flying Corps
• Russian Naval Aviation School
• Romanian Flying Corps

The Golub (Pidgeon), the first Russian-designed non-rigid airship, enters service with the Russian Army at Lida.

The first German pilot's licence is issued to August Euler.

The first model aircraft kits are manufactured by the American Aeroplane Manufacturing Company in New York.