Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
April 21, 1906 The coastal passenger steamship SS Governor Cobb was launched at Roach’s Shipyard in the city of Chester, Pennsylvania. This vessel was the first ship built in the United States to be powered by steam turbines. That turbine technology was provided for the Governor Cobb by the New Jersey-based marine engineering firm W. &... Continue Reading →
April 14, 1960 Aviation pioneer Dr. William Whitney Christmas died at Bellevue Hospital in New York City at the age of 94. He was born on September 1, 1865, in the town of Warrenton, North Carolina. After earning his M.D. from George Washington University in 1905, Christmas practiced medicine for just a few years before devoting... Continue Reading →
April 2, 1870 Henry de La Vaulx, a balloonist and overall proponent of human aviation, was born in the commune of Bierville in northern France. His airborne accomplishments included setting a long-distance flight record in 1900 when he and a companion traveled approximately 1,200 miles (1,931.2 kilometers) in just under 36 hours in a balloon... Continue Reading →
Laurel van der Wal was a mechanical and aeronautical engineer who made key contributions to the research of both human space flight and more earthbound transportation challenges. She was born to Lillian and Richard van der Wal in San Francisco on September 22, 1924. Laurel van der Wal was only 15 when she graduated from... Continue Reading →
March 28, 2001 Regular operations began for Athens International Airport (AIA) Eleftherios Venizelos in Greece. This airport serves the Greek administrative region of Attica, including the country’s capital city of Athens. AIA is specifically located in Spata, a municipal unit that is 12 miles (20 kilometers) east of downtown Athens. The airport was named in... Continue Reading →
March 20, 2004 In Indonesia, an airport in the city of Sorong in the province of West Papua was officially opened. This city was part of the region split off from West Papua in 2022 to form the province of Southwest Papua. Both of these provinces are located on the Bird’s Head Peninsula, which makes... Continue Reading →
Jeanine Menze made U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) history as that uniformed service’s first black female aviator. She was born in Kingston, Jamaica. She and her family eventually moved to Canada and then relocated to Florida. In 1997, Menze graduated from Miami Killian High School in the Sunshine State’s community of Kendall. Menze subsequently studied at... Continue Reading →
March 12, 1908 The first public demonstration of a powered aircraft flight in the United States took place near the village of Hammondsport, New York. “First Public Trip of Heavier-than-air Car in America,” announced a headline in the next day’s edition of the Washington Post. The aircraft used for that pioneering flight was the Red Wing. This... Continue Reading →
March 11, 2010 A major milestone for Stinson Municipal Airport, which is located seven miles (11.3 kilometers) south of downtown San Antonio in the south-central region of Texas, took place with the opening of a newly renovated runway. Runway 9-27, which previously had a length of 4,835 feet (1,473.7 meters), was extended to 5,002 feet... Continue Reading →
Aviation pioneer Phoebe Jane Fairgrave Omlie was born on November 21, 1902, in Des Moines, Iowa. When Omlie was 12 years old, she and her family moved to Saint Paul, Minnesota. Her lifelong interest in aviation started the day before she graduated from Mechanic Arts High School in Minnesota’s capital city in 1920. This was when... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 