On the 21st May 1927 a custom built Ryan NYP named "Spirit of St Louis" touched down at Le Bourget Aerodrome in Paris after a flight from Roosevelt Airfield in Long Island, New York. 

At this moment the $25,000 Orteig prize was won and this single 33 hour, 30 minute and 29.8 second flight fired the world's imagination for aviation.

The aircraft's pilot, Charles Lindbergh, became the world's first Global celebrity and he was hounded thereafter by the international media, in a fashion that would be familiar to modern day paparazzi. He paid a heavy price for his fame when Charles Augustus Lindbergh III, his 20 month old son, was kidnapped for ransom and was later found murdered near the family home.

The moment that the Spirit of St Louis touched French soil was the moment the world truly began to believe in the possibility of international air travel. For that reason, it is my greatest aviation event.

Picture from Wikipedia.