On This Day in History

  1908: Lt Thomas E. Selfridge, flying as a passenger with Orville Wright, dies when the Wright Flyer crashes at Fort Myer. This event was the world’s first fatal airplane accident. Wright also receives serious […]

2005: Travis AFB places the restored C-141A Starlifter (tail number 63-8088) nicknamed the Golden Bear on permanent static display. It was the USAF’s first operational C-141A, the first to carry wounded troops from Vietnam to

    1996: Operation PACIFIC HAVEN. USAF airlifters carry thousands of Kurdish refugees from Northern Iraq to Andersen AFB, Guam where they are processed for resettlement in the U.S.

1995: Through 30 September, airlifters move more than 30 tons of medical supplies from Charleston AFB to Hanoi, Vietnam, in the first humanitarian airlift to that country since the war ended in 1975. (Photo shows

2001: President George W. Bush initiates a war on terrorism and homeland-defense efforts with combat air patrols within the US under operations NOBLE EAGLE and ENDURING FREEDOM.

2005: The first-ever C-130 combat mission by an all-female crew is flown from a forward location in Southwest Asia. The crew includes Capt Carol J. Mitchell, aircraft commander; 1st Lt Siobhan Couturier, pilot; Capt Anita

1951: KOREAN WAR. Some 70 MiGs attack 28 F-86 Sabres between Sinanju and Pyongyang. Despite such odds, Capt Richard S. Becker, 334th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, and Capt Ralph D. Gibson, 335 FIS, each destroy a

  1990: The Air Force promotes Marcelite Jordan Harris to Brigadier General, making her the first black woman to hold the grade of general in the Air Force.

  1956: MACKAY TROPHY. At Edwards AFB, Capt Iven C. Kincheloe sets an altitude record for manned flight by flying the Bell X-2 rocket-powered aircraft to 126,000 feet. He later receives the Mackay Trophy.

  1922: Lt James H. Doolittle completes the first transcontinental flight in one day in a rebuilt DH-4B with Liberty 400 HP engines, 2,163 miles in 21 hours, 20 minutes. He makes one refueling stop