Beatrix de Rijk earned Pilot Licence No. 652 from the Aero Club de France. She became the first Dutch woman to hold a pilot’s licence and the sixth woman in the world to do so.

De Rijk was born in Surabaya, in what is now Indonesia, to a Javan mother and a Dutch father. She lived for speed. She was already the first Dutch woman to drive a German automobile, but she found the car too slow and bought a motorbike instead.

She travelled to France and paid 2,000 francs for flying lessons at the Hanriot school near Reims. She later described her aircraft as little more than slats, tension wires and a weak engine, with a fuel tank hanging above her head.

She passed her altitude test on September 8 and received her licence a month later. In 1951, she was honoured on the 40th anniversary of her achievement.

October 6 also marks other firsts: the premiere of the earliest surviving opera in 1600, Edison’s first motion picture in 1889 and the first talking film in 1927.