Falcon 1, flight 4 was the first privately-developed liquid-fueled rocket to achieve orbit. Not so surprising.

Is that true though? I think the Delta IV beat the Falcon 1 by about 6 years. And that was created by a Boeing & Lockheed partnership.

Boeing and Lockheed Martin got a billion dollars (together, so half a billion each) from the Air Force to develop Delta IV and Atlas V.

Then ULA got monopolist prices ($400 million for a Delta IV Heavy launch!) for years and a sweet billion dollars per year for maintaining the capability even if no launches happen that year.

Falcon 1 was developed using private money.

Falcon 9 and Dragon 1 were developed using 396 million of government money from NASA COTS program, and about a billion dollars of private money (for upgrades and reusability).

Falcon Heavy was developed using half a billion of private money.