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From Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium

The first operational air-to-air missile (AAM) was the AIM-9 Sidewinder, on which development started in 1950, the first drone was shot down in 1953, and a AIM-9B first made a combat kill in 1956. The basic Sidewinder has kept up with constant improvement; the AIM-9X entered production in 2004 as representative of the fifth generation of its family of AAMs.

"Sidewinder" is the name of a poisonous snake that uses heat sensing to find its prey, and its guidance mechanism was the inspiration for the AIM-9. At the time of its development by the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Air Force assumed that radar-guided missiles were superior, but the Air Force entry, the AIM-4 Falcon, soon dropped from consideration.

AIM-9 missiles have always been intended for close-range air combat, as opposed to the beyond visual range (BVR) capability of radar-guided missiles. The AIM-9B could only be fired at in a narrow arc behind its target, so the missile would home on the hot jet exhaust. Current models can be fired from any direction, sensing the heat difference between the entire target and the air surrounding it. The latest version can take cueing from a sight mounted on the pilot's helmet; the pilot literally only has to look at the target, and the missile will know where it is to go.