Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
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 →
A trailblazing pilot, Mildred Hemmons Carter started out life in the community of Isabella (also known as Benson) in central Alabama. She was born there on September 14, 1921, to Mamie and Luther Hemmons. Mildred and her family eventually moved to the city of Tuskegee in the eastern part of the state. After living there... Continue Reading →
February 25, 1981 An airport in western Argentina’s San Juan Province was officially opened. This airport was named after Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1811-1888), a statesman and prolific writer who served as president of Argentina from 1868 to 1874. (The airport is not the only part of Argentina's wide-ranging transportation network that bears his name; one of... Continue Reading →
February 14, 2012 A newly completed terminal for Devi Ahilya Bai Holkar (DABH) Airport in India’s state of Madhya Pradesh was formally opened. The public officials taking part in this inaugural ceremony included Shivraj Singh Chouhan (born in 1959), chief minister of Madhya Pradesh; and Ajit Singh (1939-2021), India’s minister of civil aviation. This terminal... Continue Reading →
January 24, 1946 In southern Brazil’s state of Paraná, a major milestone took place for an airport that was completed the previous year. This airport, which had been jointly built by the Brazilian Air Force Ministry and U.S. Army as a military installation during the final months of World War II, was officially dedicated for... Continue Reading →
December 6, 1875 Albert Bond Lambert was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He led an eventful life in several decidedly different capacities, which included being a golfer in the 1900 and 1904 Summer Olympics; the president and later chairman of a pharmaceutical company founded by his father (who also helped create the mouthwash Listerine); and police... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 