50 years of the Boeing 747: How the 'queen of the skies' reigned over air travel
- Written by Janet Bednarek, Professor of History, University of Dayton

On Sept. 30, 1968, the first Boeing 747 rolled out of its custom-built assembly plant in Everett, Washington. From the beginning, everything about the plane once known as the “queen of the skies” was big.
It was the first wide-body “jumbo jet” ever built, involving about...
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