Video: 'Chuck Yeager Breaks the Sound Barrier -- X-1 -- 1947'

(Tuesday, October 14, 1947, 10:26 a.m. PST) — Air Force test pilot Chuck Yeager became the first person to break the sound barrier today as he flew the experimental Bell XS-1 (later X-1) rocket plane at Mach 1.07 at an altitude of 45,000 ft over the Rogers Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert in California.