On This Day in History

  1963:    President Lyndon B. Johnson designates National Air and Space Administration and other facilities at Cape Canaveral as the John F. Kennedy Space Center.

1943:    The Combined Chiefs of Staff ask the Allied Expeditionary Air Force to attack “Ski Sites” in the Pas de Calais and Cherbourg Peninsula areas. These areas were identified as V-1 missile launching sites. (Map

1952:    MEDAL OF HONOR. Maj Charles J. Loring deliberately crashes his damaged aircraft into enemy gun emplacements; receives Medal of Honor posthumously. Citation: https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/charles-j-loring-jr  

  1970:    SON TAY RAID. A special USAF and Army task force of volunteers try to rescue US servicemen from the Son Tay POW camp 20 miles west of Hanoi, but the prisoners had been

1962:    CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS. President John F. Kennedy announces the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis after the Soviets remove all IRBMs from Cuba. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rfjnfbw4rI4

  1932:    The national monument to Wilbur and Orville Wright is dedicated near Kitty Hawk.  

  1949:    An Air Force C-74 Globemaster “The Champ” flies from Mobile, AL  to  Marham, England in 23 hours with a record 103 passengers. It was the 1st aircraft to carry 100 passengers across the

  1942:    The first women enter US AAF flight training at the Houston Municipal Airport; the unit is designated the 319th Army Air Force Flying Training Detachment.

    1969:    APOLLO XII: The second manned lunar landing mission launches from Kennedy Space Center on a Saturn V.

  1961:    At Malmstrom AFB, a Site Activation Task Force accepts the first Minuteman I (Model A) operational silo.