On This Day in History

1942:    MEDAL OF HONOR. Col Demas T. Craw and Maj Pierpoint M. Hamilton receive the medal for valorous service in the invasion of Africa.

1917:    Eugene J. Bullard, US pilot in French service, shoots down an enemy fighter, becomes 1st African American fighter pilot with an aerial victory in WW I.

1909:    The French government awards Orville and Wilbur Wright the Legion of Honor at its New York consulate.

1959:    USAF successfully transports an ICBM by air for the 1st time by flying an Atlas D on a C-133B from San Diego to Francis E. Warren AFB.

2001:    A 20th Special Operations Squadron MH-53 helicopter crew receives the Mackay trophy for rescuing crew of a 2nd MH-53 that had crashed in the Afghan mountains.  

1952:    The US Atomic Energy Commission explodes the first hydrogen bomb in the Pacific.

1968: President Johnson announces his decision to halt all bombing of North Vietnam.

1961:    Operation STAIR STEP. The first of 216 ANG fighters from units mobilized on 1 October deploy across the Atlantic to European bases in response to the Berlin Wall crisis (On the ramp at Goose

1954:    Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. becomes USAF’s first African American general officer.

1940:    First flight of the North American NA-73 (P-51 Mustang prototype) at Mines Field near Los Angeles; designed, built and flown in under 130 days.