On This Day in History

  1950:    General of the Air Force Henry H. Arnold dies of a heart ailment at Sonoma, CA.

    1943:    The Casablanca Conference opens. Plans for a combined bomber offensive against Germany are established. Lt Gen Ira C. Eaker promotes a daylight-bombing offensive for U. S. forces.

1993:    FIRST US MILITARY WOMAN IN SPACE. Maj Susan Helms becomes the first US military woman in space during a flight of the Space Shuttle Endeavour.

1994:    An HH-60G Pave Hawk from 56th Rescue Squadron at Keflavik, Iceland rescues six sailors off the coast; receives the 1994 Mackay trophy.

1793:    Jean Pierre Blanchard makes the first manned balloon flight in America with a 46-minute trip between the Wall Street Prison in Philadelphia PA, to Deptford Township, NJ carrying landing clearance orders signed by President

1973:    LAST AERIAL VICTORY. In their F-4D Phantom 65-0796, Capt Paul D. Howman and 1Lt Lawrence W. Kullman shoot down a MiG southwest of Hanoi with a radar-guided AIM-7 missile. This shootdown was the last

1968:    The National Air and Space Administration’s Surveyor VII, the last spacecraft in the program to analyze the lunar surface, launches from the Eastern Test Range, FL aboard an Atlas-Centaur rocket (AC-15), on a 67-hour

  1977:    The Department of Defense places the Air Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM) program into full-scale development and sets up a joint cruise missile project office.

  1945:    BATTLE OF THE BULGE: American and British forces counterattack the Germans under the protection of Allied airpower.

1967:    OPERATION BOLO. F-4 Phantom pilots from the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing shoot down seven North Vietnamese MiG-21s in a sweep mission over the Red River valley to set a one-day aerial victory record. This