This feels like one of those cases where it’s safe to say “history” instead of “recorded history.”

History, as recorded by Flightradar24: "a whopping grand total of 153,359 commercial flights were tracked between 00:00 UTC and 23:59 UTC on July 23, 2026" So I would say it's justified to qualify it. Not sure how Flightradar24's coverage has evolved over time, but it could theoretically be that there were more flights at some point before 2020, but some of them weren't tracked?

Even history is not safe if you consider the entire universe.

I dont think they are refering to that. I think it is a reference to all the non-recorded flights happening every day. Maybe there was a day last week with more flying, but it wasnt all recorded.