On This Day in History

  1975: Using a Titan III booster, NASA launches the Viking I mission to Mars from Cape Canaveral AFS. It soft lands on Mars 20 June 1976.

  1960:    MACKAY TROPHY. Capt Harold E. Mitchell pilots a Fairchild C-119 to make the first aerial retrieval of an orbited capsule. Discoverer XIV, which launched on 18 August, ejected the capsule. For this aerial

  1922:    Elmer Ambrose Sperry demonstrates the Sperry airway light beacon at McCook Field. (Photo at right shows a beacon at Omaha, NE during the 1920s).

  1945:    VICTORY DAY–JAPAN. The Japanese government announces its intention to surrender “unconditionally.”

1942:       When Lt Elza Shahan ferries his P-38 to England, he spots a German FW-200 Condor near Iceland. Shahan turns and shoots the Condor down, becoming the first American Army pilot to shoot down a

  1917:    The First Aero Squadron, which departed Columbus, NM on 5 August, sails for Europe under command of Maj Ralph Royce. It is the first squadron to report for flying duty in the American

1962:    ECHO I satellite launches from the Air Force Cape Canaveral launch Complex 17 aboard a Thor-Delta rocket. After two years in orbit, the Echo I satellite establishes that inflatable structures could function in

1944:    MEDAL OF HONOR. For valorous actions while leading 33 B-26 Marauders against a railroad bridge on the Seine River, Capt Darrell R. Lindsey is awarded a Medal of Honor posthumously. Citation: http://www.cmohs.org/recipient-detail/2845/lindsey-darrell-r.php

  1967:    McGuire AFB receives the last C-141, the “Garden State Starlifter,” to be delivered to a MAC base from Lockheed.

1990:    Operation DESERT SHIELD. In response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, the US military deploys to protect Saudi Arabia from Iraqi aggression and to liberate Kuwait.