A piece of aviation history

Supersonic airline research in Europe began in 1956 and resulted in the British and French Governments signing an international treaty for the joint design, development and manufacture of a supersonic airliner six years later. The first prototype was rolled out at Toulouse in 1967 and since then, there have been a number of notable dates in the history of Concorde.
Concorde measures 204ft in length - stretching between six and ten inches in-flight due to heating of the airframe. She is painted in a specially developed white paint to accommodate these changes and to dissipate the heat generated by supersonic flight. The wingspan is 83ft 8ins - much less than conventional subsonic aircraft as Concorde flies in totally a different way using "Vortex Lift" to achieve her exceptional performance. The height is 37ft 1ins. The characteristic droop nose is lowered to improve pilots' visibility for take-off and landing.
Concorde's four engines - specially designed Rolls-Royce/ Snecma Olympus 593s - give more than 38,000lbs of thrust each, with 'reheat'. This adds fuel to the final stage of the engine to produce the extra power required for take-off and the transition to supersonic flight. They are the most powerful pure jet engines flying commercially.
On Tuesday, 25th July 2000 the very first fatal accident involving Concorde occured with Concorde 203, F-BTSC out bound from Paris to New York. It crashed 60 seconds after take off after suffering tyre blow out that caused a fuel tank to rupture. This started a sequence of events that caused a fire which eventually lead to 2 engines failing and the aircraft crashing.
All 109 people (100 passengers and 9 crew) on board were killed. 4 people in a local hotel on the ground were also killed.
After the accident, the era of supersonic travel came to an end. The superjet known as ‘Concorde’ maked its final journey — and is now part of history. The supersonic age is over — for now at least.

The first Concorde jets carrying commercial passengers simultaneously took off from London's Heathrow Airport (to Bahrain) and Orly Airport (to Rio de Janeiro), on January 21, 1976, 31 years ago today.