Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
April 26, 1977 Samantha Cristoforetti, a European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut, was born in the major Italian city of Milan. She grew up in MalĂ©, a commune (municipality) that is likewise located in the northern region of Italy. Cristoforetti traveled to the United States at the age of 18 as an exchange student in the... Continue Reading →
April 23, 1988 The ancient mythical flight of the craftsman Daedalus, who reportedly took to the skies while flapping wings made of feathers and wax, was recreated by Kanellos Kanellopoulos. The 30-year-old Greek cycling champion accomplished this with a pink-and-silver pedal-plane that had been built by the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department of the Massachusetts Institute of... Continue Reading →
Aviation pioneer and Olympic athlete Iris Cummings, who is also known by married name Iris Critchell, was on December 21, 1920, in Los Angeles. She attended the 1932 Summer Olympics in that city and shortly thereafter began swimming competitively. Cummings went on to win a large number of local and regional tournaments in this sport.... Continue Reading →
In 1983, Guion Bluford became the first African American to fly into space when he went into orbit on board the Space Shuttle Challenger. The first African American astronaut was actually Robert Henry Lawrence Jr. He never had the opportunity to travel into space, however; in 1967 -- just a few months after being selected... Continue Reading →
In 2010, La’Shanda R. Holmes Hawkins became the first African American female helicopter pilot in the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG). As an officer in that uniformed service, she has amassed more than 2,000 flight hours while helping to carry out search-and-rescue missions; law enforcement operations; and various other duties. Hawkins, who was born in... Continue Reading →
February 2, 1917 Mary Ellis, who would achieve renown for her achievements as a pilot during World War II, was born at Langley Farm in South East England’s village and civil parish of Leafield. As someone who grew up near a couple of Royal Air Force (RAF) bases, she developed a strong interest in aviation... Continue Reading →
January 11, 1938 The first aircraft landing at eastern Canada's recently completed Newfoundland Airport (present-day Gander International Airport) took place when pilot Douglas C. Fraser (1903-1990) flew a single-engine Fox Moth VO-ADE biplane owned by Imperial Airways down onto a runway there. “I can remember it quite well,” Fraser later recalled about that clear winter day. He... Continue Reading →
August 14, 1919 The U.S. Post Office Department, pushing the bounds of airmail and its applications further than ever before, conducted its first official delivery of mail via plane to a ship after it had already left port to sail across the ocean. This pioneering experiment took place when pilot Cyrus J. Zimmerman flew a... Continue Reading →
August 2, 1889 Charles Terres Weymann, who earned international fame for his achievements involving two modes of transportation, was born in Haiti’s capital city of Port-au-Prince. He was the son of a Haitian mother and American father. Just a few years after the Wright Brothers’ pioneering flight at Kitty Hawk, Weymann learned how to operate... Continue Reading →
July 17, 1962 A new aviation record was set when U.S. Air Force (USAF) Major Robert M. White piloted a rocket-powered North American X-15 aircraft to an altitude of 59.6 miles (95.9 kilometers) above Earth. White’s trek up that far into the sky began with a bomber dropping his aircraft over Nevada. By subsequently zooming as... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 