The European story: Normandy & Calvados
Normandy grew cider apples for centuries before anyone distilled them; cider (sicera) was drunk by the region's Norse settlers and had become a refined product enjoyed by nobles and clergy by the 15th century Distillerie Busnel.
The pivotal document is the journal of Gilles de Gouberville, a Cotentin squire, who on 28 March 1553 recorded distilling cider into an eau-de-vie de bouche — the first written record of Norman cider distillation Wikipedia: Calvados. Local tradition credits Gouberville with inventing Calvados, but historians think farmers were likely already doing it; his diary is simply the first surviving mention drinkcalvados.com. A cider-distillers' guild followed around 1606.
Formal protection arrived with AOC status for Calvados Pays d'Auge in 1942, revised in 1984 and 1996, with the pear-inclusive Domfrontais appellation created in 1997 (minimum 30% pears) Wikipedia: Calvados.
The American story: applejack & Laird's
Apple brandy is arguably America's first spirit. Scots-Irish settler William Laird began distilling apples in Monmouth County, New Jersey, around 1698; the family's first documented commercial bill of sale dates to 1780, treated as the founding of Laird & Company, the oldest licensed distillery in the US New Jersey Monthly.
A young George Washington reportedly requested Laird's recipe for "cyder spirits," and Washington did produce apple brandy at Mount Vernon — his distillery ledger records 67 gallons of apple brandy transferred to the Mount Vernon house in October 1799. The ledger entry is documented; the Laird-recipe story is family tradition that Mount Vernon's own historians say isn't confirmed in the records. In colonial times apples were "smaller and more bitter than apples today," grown for cider and spirit rather than the table bevvy.co.
The colonial "jacking" method — freeze-concentrating hard cider through a winter — gives applejack its name. One modern legal wrinkle is worth knowing: blended applejack (a 1972 US standard, at least 20% apple brandy plus neutral spirit) is a different category from straight apple brandy whiskeylore.org.