This article outlines the important developments in the history of the development of the air-breathing (duct) jet engine. Although the most common type, the gas turbine powered jet engine, was certainly a 20th-century invention, many of the needed advances in theory and technology leading to this invention were made well before this time. The jet engine was clearly an idea whose time had come. Frank Whittle submitted his first patent in 1930. By the late 1930s there were six teams chasing development, three in Germany, two in the UK and one in Hungary. By 1942 they had been joined by another half dozen British companies, three more in the United States based on British technology, and early efforts in the Soviet Union and Japan based on British and German designs respectively. For some time after the World War II, British designs dominated, but by the 1950s there were many competitors, particularly in the US with its huge arms-buying programme.

Prehistoric times

Ancient times

The leadup (1791–1929)

First turbojet engines (1930–38)

1939, Flight

1940

1942

1943

1943

1944

1945

1946

1949

1950

1952

1953

1956

1958

1959

1968

1975

1976

1978

1983

1997

2002

2003

2004

2007