On This Day in History

1944: Army Air Forces reaches its WW II high total of 2, 411, 294 persons assigned.

  2004: NASA’s X-43A unmanned scramjet aircraft becomes the first jet to break Maj William J. Knight’s X-15 record of 4,520 MPH. While the X-1, Skyrocket, X-2, and X-15 were rocket-powered, the X-43 featured an

  1965:     The first nuclear power system to be tested in space, the SNAP 10A, is successfully launched into orbit aboard an Atlas-Agena spacecraft. SNAP 10A functions for 43 days until a electrical component fails.

  1999: Operation ALLIED FORCE. An F-15 shoots down two MiG-29s in aerial combat over Yugoslavia on the third day of the operation.

1944: Fifteenth Air Force makes its first operational delivery of a VB-1 Azon radio-controlled bomb against the Avisio Viaduct, attempting  to cut the Brenner Pass between Italy and great­er Germany.

  1945: Operation VARSITY. An Allied airborne and amphibious assault crosses the Rhine River. More than 2,000 transports and gliders from the IX Troop Carrier Command drop two airborne divisions near Wesel, Germany, in daylight.

  1951: Operation TOMAHAWK. In the Korean War’s second airborne operation, and the largest to date in one day, 120 USAF transports drop more than 3,400 troops and 220 tons of materiel behind enemy lines

2006: The C-17 Globemaster III fleet surpasses its millionth flight hour during a mission to evacuate injured US troops from Iraq to Germany.

  2003: Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. c. 9:30 p. m. EST, US forces begin the air war against Iraq with Tomahawk cruise missile strikes.

  1942: The US and Panama sign an agreement for defense sites and air bases in Panama to defend the canal.