When were airbrakes used for the first time in aviation?
(Flight magazine 1914)

I'll answer the title question, as the complete history is too broad. That would be the Avro Scout (model 511) of c. 1914. Only one was built. Yes, that suspiciously looks like flaps. Back then +100 years ago that invention was called an air brake, flaps are air brakes after all.

From Wikipedia:


  Most unusually for its time, the inboard lower wing featured landing flaps air brakes, so the 511 landed at a sedate 35 mph (56 km/h).


This is what the plane looked like: