American pilot Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier on 14th October, 1947. Yeager flew the Bell X-1 rocket plane, nicknamed Glamorous Glennis, over Rogers Dry Lake in southern California. The X-1 was lifted to an altitude of 25,000 feet by a B-29 aircraft and then released, rocketing to 40,000 feet and exceeding 662 miles per hour (the sound barrier at that altitude).
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