year old French inventor, aircraft designer, and self-trained pilot, flew across the treacherous English Channel early on July 25, 1909, in an aircraft he designed himself: the Bleriot XI. The flight from Les Barraques, France, to Dover, England, undertaken in bad weather, earned him the 1,000 pounds in prize money that the London Daily Mail had offered to the first aviator to cross the Channel in either direction.
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