On July 25th, 1909, Louis Blériot (1872-1936) completed the first flight across the English Channel in an airplane. He made the trip in 37 minutes in the Blériot XI, a monoplane which he designed himself, and won a prize of £1,000 offered by the London Daily Mail.
Blériot had two rivals for the prize: Hubert Latham and Charles de Lambert. Latham attempted the crossing on July 19th; however, he was forced to land on the sea when his plane developed engine trouble. Lambert was injured in a crash during a test flight and quit the competition. Blériot himself hobbled to his plane on crutches having badly burned his foot a few days earlier when a gasoline line broke on another of his airplanes.
After the success of his flight, Blériot was able to sell the Blériot XI to the French army. In 1914, he became president of the aircraft manufacturing company Société pour les Appareils Deperdussin, which he renamed Société Pour Aviation et ses Derives (SPAD). The SPAD became one of France's leading manufacturers of combat aircraft and produced fighter planes used in the First World War.
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