On This Day in History

1969: APOLLO XI/FIRST MAN ON THE MOON. Astronauts Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr., fly the lunar module Eagle to the Sea of Tranquility, where Armstrong takes the first step on the moon. […]

1941: Capt Benjamin O. Davis reports to the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama with 12 black aviation cadets to begin flight training.

1940: Bombardier training at Air Corps schools begins at Lowry Field with the first class of bombardier instructors.

1973: LAST SEA COMBAT MISSION/VIETNAM SUMMARY. All US bombing in Cambodia ends after eight years of conventional operations. An A-7D from the 354th TFW flies the last combat mission. Altogether, USAF flies in the war

1943: Comiso Airfield is the first airfield recaptured in Sicily, by LT Gen Omar Bradley’s II Corps. Afterwards a German JU-88 lands amid US flak shots. The pilot climbs out, shakes his fist at the

1921: Brig Gen William “Billy” Mitchell’s Martin MB-2 and Handley Page bombers test the sinking of several ships off the Virginia Capes. The tests study the use of bombs on ships to sug­gest how ship

  1957: USAF cancels the Navaho program. The Navaho provided technologies for other mis­siles: the Atlas and Thor used a modified Navaho booster, and the Hound Dog, Polaris, and Mi­nuteman missiles used its inertial guidance system.

1944: Lt Col Clifford Heflin flies his C-47 on the first landing mission into France to rescue airmen who had parachuted behind enemy lines.

  1942:          Flying a Lockheed A-29 Hudson, Lt Harry J. Kane and crew of the 396th BMS attack and sink a German submarine (U-701) off Cherry Point NC to make the first sure “kill”

1989: President George H. W. Bush presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civi­lian award, to Gen James H. Doolittle (retired) at the White House. Doolittle is the only person to have received