In a way, Airbus' first airliner was born at the Paris Air Show.
In 1969, the French transport minister and West Germany's economics minister met inside a mockup of the A300 and signed an agreement to build the new airliner.
The A300 was the world's first-ever twin-engine widebody, typically carrying up to 265 passengers. It was the spring board for all the Airbus projects that followed and the start of one of the world's greatest industrial rivalries.
