Lest we forget, there is a reason why the 747 is called a “jumbo” jet. When it rolled off the assembly line, it was the largest aircraft ever built, three times the size of the largest one before its development. Its hull alone stretched for 172 feet – more than half a football field. Some pilots refused to take the stick behind it, saying it will never fly. But fly it did.

On this day, January 22, 1970, a Pan Am flight on a Boeing  747 took off from New York en route to London. The launch was not all smooth sailing – the inaugural flight was planned for eveningtime in the day before, but engine overheating caused six hours of delay, and it was the morning of the 22nd by the time the flight took off.

It’s hard to imagine that Boeing could have predicted the enormous success of their invention or the variety of ways it would be put to use. Modified models of the 747 have been used by NASA to carry shuttles and to take instruments into high altitudes; by the government to transport the president and VIPs; and — one use that Boeing did envision — by cargo carriers around the world.