Remember, as long as jet propulsion was not there, speed of sound too was an unbreakeable barrier.
Of course, there's an important difference between the speed of light and the so called sound barrier.
There are numerous examples of objects in the universe that break the speed of sound. The earth, for example. Asteroids and comets. Electromagnetic radiation.
Nothing, however, is observed to travel faster than light. There is, as far as I'm aware, no serious proposal for being able to travel faster than light.
In other words, the difference between the sound barrier and the speed of light (in terms of being able to exceed those speeds) is that the sound barrier was one of technological limitation, whereas the speed of light is physical limitation.