This Day in Air and Space History

  1949:    The USAF gives the B-29 Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, to the Smithsonian Institute.

  1943:    Lt Charles Hall, 99th Fighter Squadron, becomes the first US African-American pilot to shoot down an Axis plane, a German Focke-Wulf 190 over Sicily.

1941:    The Air Corps Ferrying Command (ACFC) sends its first air transport flights from Bolling Field to Scotland via Montreal and Newfoundland. Using modified B-24 Liberator bombers with seats in the bomb bay, the “Arnold

  1950: Korean War. 1Lt Bryce Poe II, in an RF-80A, flies the USAF’s first jet combat reconnaissance mission, photographing the North Korean advance.

1995: For the first time a Space Shuttle, the Atlantis, visits the Russian Mir space station.

  1994: A 60th Airlift Wing C-5 from Travis AFB flies a 34-ton Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine to Chernobyl, Ukraine. There medical specialists use the machine to treat victims of the 1986 nuclear reactor

  1996: Terrorists bomb Khobar Towers near King Abdul-Aziz AB, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 Air Force personnel and injuring 300 others. It is the worst terrorist attack against American military personnel since the 1983 bombing

  1997: Operation PROVIDE COMFORT/NORTHERN WATCH. EF-111A Ravens from the 429th Electronic Combat Squadron (ECS) at Cannon AFB left Turkey for home after nearly 2,100 days of deployment to support the two operations.

    1954: USAF creates a Western Development Division under Brig Gen Bernard A. Schriever to accelerate the Atlas ICBM program.

  1941: The United States Army Air Forces is formed, leading to, by the end of World War II, a largely autonomous force.