With roars of approval, the ground crew ran to help the pilot out, and a tall, elegant woman, smiling broadly, stepped into history. Raymonde de Laroche had just driven a heavier-than-air machine into the air alone and is generally recognized as the first woman in the world who did so. Five months later she was issued license No. 36—35 men preceded her—by the Aero Club of France, joining the growing number of men licensed in Europe and the United States. Her sisters in Europe and America were quick to follow in her foot-steps. They knew they could ride bicycles and motorcycles, and drive automobiles—balloons were tame—and now here was this marvelous machine with its promise of speed, adventure, financial gain, and overall pure pleasure. The fact that they were invading a man’s world didn’t worry them; it never occurred to them. By the end of 1910, France had three more licensed women pilots, and elsewhere adventuresome women had taken to the skies in 1911: Lydia Zvereva in Russia, Melli Beese in Germany, Hilda Hewlett in England, and Harriet Quimby in the United States.
