When Jacqueline Cochran slid into the cockpit of a F-86 Sabre Mk on 18 May 1953, she had one goal in mind: hold the plane in a banked position of 30 degrees for a 63-mile circular flight and beat Colonel Ascani's mark of 1,023.04 km/h. Reader, she didn’t just beat Ascani's record by 27 km/h - Jacqueline Cochran became the first woman to break the sound barrier.

If that don’t impress you much, get this: Cochran was also the first woman to land and take off from an aircraft carrier, the first woman to pilot a bomber across the North Atlantic and the first woman to make a blind landing. To this day, Cochran still holds more distance and speed records than any pilot.