CALENDAR: THIS WEEK
IMPORTANT ANNIVERSARIES
Past Items of the Week these Two Weeks
Wednesday, April 16, is the 113th anniversary of Harriet Quimby becoming the first woman to fly the English Channel. For more about this incredible “Aeroplane Girl,” see here.
Wednesday, April 16, is also the 79th anniversary of the first series of V-2 test launches at White Sands. For more about the program and its “Operation Paperclip” staff, see here and here.
Thursday, April 17, is the 58th anniversary of the launch of the Surveyor 3 lunar soft lander. For more about the Surveyor Program, see here. For more about the recovery of pieces from it by the crew of Apollo 12, see here.
Friday, April 18, is the 83rd anniversary of the Doolittle Tokyo bombing raid and the 82nd anniversary of the shooting down of Admiral Yamamoto, the mastermind of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, two important combat missions exactly one year apart. For more, see here.
Thursday, April 24, is the 63rd anniversary of the launch of Echo 1, a giant aluminized balloon off which radio signals were successfully bounced “over the horizon.” For more about the importance of communications satellites and other aspects of Space utilization, see here.
Friday, April 25, is the 81st anniversary of the first use of a helicopter to move troops, when a Sikorsky YR-4 Hoverfly was used to rescue four British soldiers in Burma. For more on the Hoverfly and its inventor, Igor Sikorsky, see here.
Friday, April 25, is also the 83rd anniversary of the first test flight of a prototype of the B-29 Superfortress bomber and the 61st anniversary of the first test flight of the XB-70A supersonic bomber. For more about these two auspicious events, see here.
Saturday, April 26, is the 222nd anniversary of the famous fall of meteorites at the village of L’Aigle, France, that finally convinced everyone that stones can actually fall from the sky. For more about this event, see here.
Saturday, April 26, is also the 105th anniversary of the famous “Great Debate” of astronomy between Shapley, who believed that spiral nebulae were part of our Milky Way, and Curtis, who (correctly) held that spiral nebulae were galaxies like the Milky Way at great distances. For more about this pivotal moment in astronomical history, see here.
Wednesday, April 30, is the 99th anniversary of the death of the first African-American pilot, “Bessie” Coleman. For more about this famed aviatrix, see here.
Air and Space this Week
April 16, 2025 – April 30, 2025
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THE SECOND HALF OF APRIL AT A GLANCE Anniversaries: The 30th anniversary of the domestic terrorism murders of 168 people in Oklahoma City (4/19) and the Global Positioning System going fully-operational (4/27); the 55th of the safe return to Earth of Apollo 13 (4/17) and the first observation of Earth Day (4/22); the 105th of astronomy’s Great Debate (4/26); the 125th of Casey Jones’ heroism on the Cannonball Express (4/30); the 160th of the Sultana steamship calamity that killed 2000+ (4/27); and the 250th of the gallant Rides of Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Samual Prescott (4/18) Birthdays: Guitarist Peter Frampton (4/22) and comedian Jay Leno (4/28) are 75; singer Bobby Vinton is 90 (4/16) In the Sky: The Moon reaches Last Quarter at 9:36 PM EDT on Sunday, April 20; New Moon occurs at 3:31 PM EDT on Sunday, April 27 |
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Wednesday, April 16 Today in Air and Space History 1912: Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly the English Channel. 1946: The first of a series of launches of captured V-2missiles was conducted at the White Sands, NM, range. 1972: Launch of the Apollo 16 Moon mission. Other Events this Date: President Lincoln signed an act abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia (1862) Today’s Birthdays: Airplane pioneer Wilbur Wright (1867), actors Charlie Chaplin (1889) and Peter Ustinov (1921), composer Henry Mancini (1924), singers Bobby Vinton (1935) and Dusty Springfield (1939), and basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1947) |
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Thursday, April 17 Today in Air and Space History 1926: Western Air Service began serving Contract Air Mail Route #4 (LA-Las Vegas-Salt Lake), selecting a Douglas M-2 for the run. 1967: Launch of Surveyor 3 lunar soft lander spacecraft. Apollo 12 astronauts would later visit it, and return pieces of it to Earth. 1970: The Apollo 13 astronauts returned safely to Earth. 1973: Federal Express began overnight air freight service. 1998: Launch of STS-90 Space Shuttle Columbia on the Neurolab microgravity/biology experiment mission. Other Events this Date: Shortstop legend Luis Aparicio and pitching great Don Drysdale began their baseball careers (1956), Three Dog Night hit #1 with Joy to the World, to the elation of the fishes in the deep blue sea (1971) Today’s Birthdays: Author Thornton Wilder (1897), actor William Holden (1918), and trombonist Chris Barber (1930) |
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Friday, April 18 Today in Air and Space History 1942: Jimmy Doolittle led a strike of B-25 bombers, launched from carrier Hornet, against targets in Japan. 1943:P-38s, under Captain John Mitchell, shot down a "Betty" bomber containing Japanese Admiral Yamamoto, an ambush made possible through the breaking of Japanese codes. Controversy over which pilot should get credit for the victory has swirled ever since (Consensus: Barber got Yamamoto, Lanphier did not). 1969: The "Harrier" V/STOL "jump jet" entered RAF squadron service. Other Events this Date: Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Samuel Prescott rode to warn “The British are Coming” (1775), San Francisco suffered its famous earthquake and fire (1906), Yankee Stadium opened (1923), beloved war correspondent Ernie Pyle was killed (1945; his boyhood home in Indiana is now a museum, and his wartime home in Albuquerque is part of that city’s library system) Today’s Birthdays: Lawyer Clarence Darrow (1857), actress Barbara Hale (1922), Manfred Mann guitarist Mike Vickers (1941), innovative placekicker Pete Gogolak (1942), actress Hayley Mills (1946), comedic actor Rick Moranis (1953), and TV host Conan O’Brien (1963) |
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Saturday, April 19 Today in Air and Space History 1960: First flight of the Grumman A-6 "Intruder" naval heavy attack aircraft. 1971: Launch of Salyut 1, the world's first Space Station. 1982: Launch of SovietSpace StationSalyut 7, to replace Salyut 6. 2001: Launch of STS-100 Space Shuttle Endeavour on a mission to deliver and install a robotic arm for the International Space Station. Other Events this Date: First Boston Marathon held (1897), Carousel opened on Broadway (1945), General MacArthur faded away (1951), domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, murdering 168 (1995) Today’s Birthdays: Singer Frank “Crazy Guggenheim” Fontaine (1920), actor Dick “Second Darrin” Sargent (1930), actress Jayne Mansfield (1933), actress Elinor Donahue (1937), The Association guitarist Larry Ramos (1942), and RHPS actor Tim Curry (1946) |
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Sunday, April 20 Today in Air and Space History 1972:Apollo 16's lunar module, Orion, successfully touched down in the highlands near Crater Decartes. 1977: Launch of GOES-1, an ESA spacecraft designed to study the solar wind and characteristics of interplanetary space. Other Events this Date: Hot Springs, AR became first “Federal Reservation” aka National Park (although Yellowstone was the first to be called a “National Park,” 1832), Shirley Temple debuted in Stand Up and Cheer (1934) Today’s Birthdays: Evil Adolf Hitler (1889), comedian Harold Lloyd (1893), percussionist Lionel Hampton (1908), and band leader Tito Puente (1925) In the Sky: The Moon reaches Last Quarter at 9:36 PM EDT |
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Monday, April 21 Today in Air and Space History 1918: Manfred von Richthofen, the "Red Baron," credited with 80 WWI victories, was shot down and killed. Both pilot Roy Brown and ground troops claim they made the telling shot. Actually, I think the Royal Guardsmen figured it out… Other Events This Date: First train crossing of the Mississippi River (1856), the largest “fish” landed by rod and reel caught this date (2664-pound shark, 1959), Rosie Ruiz cheated to “win” the Boston Marathon (1980), Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone’s essentially empty “vault” on live TV, to much too much fanfare (1986) Today’s Birthdays: Famed conservationist John Muir (1838), actor Anthony Quinn (1915), monarch Queen Elizabeth II (1926), actor Tony Danza (1951), and actress Andie MacDowell (1958) |
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Tuesday, April 22 Today in Air and Space History 1970: First national observance of "Earth Day," sparked in large part due to the change in public perception of the terrestrial environment due to increasingly-commonplace views from near-Earth orbit. Other Events this Date: The “Senior Circuit” National League began its inaugural baseball season (1876), the Oklahoma Land Rush began at local noon, unless you were “sooner” (1889), and Elvis bombed in his Las Vegas debut (1956) Today’s Birthdays: “Very rarely-stable” philosopher Immanuel Kant (1707), Russian premier Nikolai Lenin (1870), physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904), Green Acres! actor, conservationist, humanitarian, and genuine war hero Eddie Albert (1906), bongo ace Candido Camero (1921), producer Aaron Spelling (1923), guitarist Glen Campbell (1936), actor Jack Nicholson (1937), guitarist Peter Frampton (1950), and hockey center Tom Lysiak (1953) |
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Wednesday, April 23 Today in Air and Space History 1962: Launch of Ranger 4, an unsuccessful lunar hard lander probe. Other Events this Date: “Hammerin’” Hank Aaron hit his first major league home run (1954), Pete Rose got his first major league hit (1963), Ken Johnson of the Houston Colts pitched a no-hitter, but lost to the Cincinnati Reds (1964), “New” Coca-Cola was announced (1985) Today’s Birthdays: Playwright William Shakespeare (1564), debater Stephen Douglas (1813), composer Sergei Prokofiev (1891), actress Shirley Temple (1928), singer Roy “The Voice” Orbison (1936), re-built actor Lee Majors (1939), goalie Tony Esposito (1943), actor and plane spotter Herve Villechaize (1943), and Def Lepard guitarist Steve Clark (1960) |
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Thursday, April 24 Today in Air and Space History 1962: First successful use of a satellite (Echo 1) to bounce a radio signal "over the horizon." 1967: Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was killed in the re-entry crash of Soyuz 1. 1990: Launch of STS-31 Space Shuttle Discovery, on a mission to deploy the Hubble Space Telescope. Other Events this Date:The Mindbenders hit #1 with Game of Love (until next week, when Herman’s Hermits moved up with Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter; 1965) Today’s Birthdays: Jazz bassist Aaron Bell (1922), mystical actress Shirley MacLaine (1934), singer Barbara Streisand (1942), Creedence Clearwater Revival drummer Doug Clifford (1945), and The Damned’s bassist, Captain Sensible, (1954) |
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Friday, April 25 Today in Air and Space History 1944: A helicopter (Sikorksky YR-4 Hoverfly) was used for the first time to evacuate troops in combat (four British soldiers from the Burmese jungle). There is a slight dispute over the date of this event; some sources say April 22-23. 1967: First NASA flight of the XB-70A, the prototype for a supersonic bomber. Other Events this Date: First cartographic appearance of “Amerigo” as name for New World (1507), St. Lawrence Seaway opened (1959) Today’s Birthdays: Radio inventor Guglielmo Marconi (1874), famed newsman Edward R. Murrow (1908), globetrotting Meadowlark Lemon (1932), Creedence Clearwater Revival bassist Stu Cook (1945), and The Left Banke keyboardist Michael Brown (1949) |
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Saturday, April 26 Today in Air and Space History 1803: A large fall of meteorites was observed by hundreds in the French village of L'Aigle. The observations at L'Aigle triggered, and held up under, a thorough scientific investigation. The scientific community accepted that stones can, in fact, fall from the sky. 1920: The Great Debate (astronomy), aka the Shapley-Curtis Debate, was held at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. The issue was whether “spiral nebulae” were objects within the Milky Way (Harlow Shapley) or they were “island universes” like the Milky Way but much farther away (Curtis). 1962: Launch of Ariel 1, the first satellite built by a multi-national consortium (see Reference 1). 1993: Launch of STS-55 Space Shuttle Columbia, carrying the second German-built SpaceLabmodule Other Events this Date: First U.S. Odd Fellows lodge established (Baltimore, 1819), Chernobyl atomic plant disaster (1986) Today’s Birthdays: Birdwatcher John J. Audubon (1785), seismologist Charles Richter (1900), and comedienne Carol Burnett (1933) |
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Sunday, April 27 Today in Air and Space History 1961: Launch of the Explorer 11 satellite, the first gamma ray astronomical observatory. 1972:Apollo 16 safely returned to Earth from its mission to the Decartes highlands region of the Moon. 1995: The Global Positioning System became fully operational. Other Events this Date: Worst U.S. steamship disaster, the explosion and sinking of the Sultana near Cairo, Illinois, killed almost 2000 (1865), Beatle Ringo Starr married fellow Caveman actor Barbara Bach (1981; and they’re still married) Today’s Birthdays: Inventor Samuel F.B. Morse (1791), President U.S. Grant (1822), animator Walter Lantz (1900), Top 40ist Casey Kasem (1932), Laugh In! comedienne Judy Carne (1939), and Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Keith Magnuson (1947) In the Sky: New Moon occurs at 3:31 PM EDT |
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Monday, April 28 Today in Air and Space History 1927: Charles Lindbergh took the Spirit of St. Louis up for its first flight. 1961: First manned balloon landing on US aircraft carrier (USS Antietam by Malcolm Ross and Victor Prather), a “dress rehearsal for the record-setting Stratolab Hi5 balloon launch from Antietam on May 4. Prather would drown at the conclusion of the Stratolab Hi5 mission. 1991: Launch of STS-39 Space Shuttle Discovery on a classified DOD mission. 2001: Launch of Soyuz TM-31 with the first paying passenger/participant (Dennis Tito) aboard. 2003: Launch of the Galaxy Evolution Explorer spacecraft (GALEX), an orbiting ultraviolet telescope. Other Events This Date: Maryland joined Union as 7th state (1788), the crew of HMS Bounty mutinied (1789), explorer Thor Heyerdahl set sail in the Kon Tiki (1947), Muhammad Ali refused draft induction on religious grounds (1967), Aloha Flight 243 lost part of its fuselage to metal fatigue; a flight attendant was killed (1988) Today’s Birthdays: President James Monroe (1758), actor Lionel Barrymore (1878), actress Carolyn “Morticia” Jones (1929), dancer Ann-Margret (1941), Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show drummer John Wolters (1945), Tonight Show host Jay Leno (1950) |
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Tuesday, April 29 Today in Air and Space History 1985: Launch of STS-51B Space Shuttle Challenger, carrying the SpaceLab 3module. Other Events this Date: Dachau concentration camp liberated (1945), the Wild World of Sports premiered (1961; the agonized ski jumper, Vinko Bogataj, came later), Hair premiered on Broadway (1968) Today’s Birthdays: William Randolph Hearst (1863); bandleader Duke Ellington (1899); shortstop Luis Aparicio (1934); rocker Tommy James (1947); actors Jerry Seinfeld (1954), Kate Mulgrew (1955), and Michelle Pfeiffer (1958); and tennis player Andre Agassi (1970) |
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Wednesday, April 30 Today in Air and Space History 1917: (Then) Major "Billy" Mitchell became the first American pilot to fly over German lines in WWI. 1926: "Bessie" Coleman, the first African-American licensed pilot of either gender, was killed during an aerial performance. Other Events this Date: Louisiana admitted to Union as 18th state (1812), engineer “Casey” Jones died saving lives on the “Cannonball Express” (1900) Today’s Birthdays: Comedienne Eve Arden (1908), actor Al “Grandpa Munster” Lewis (1910), actress and madcap dancer Cloris Leachman (1926), singer Willie Nelson (1933), Santo & Johnny singer Santo Farina (1941, original group for slack key guitar classic, Sleepwalk) |
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THE FIRST HALF OF MAY AT A GLANCE Anniversaries: The 55th anniversary of the Kent State massacre (5/4); the 65th of the shooting down of Francis Gary Powers in his U-2 over Russia (5/1); the 75th of the first flight of the rocket plane Bell X-1A #1 (Chuck Yeager would later fly it through the “sound barrier,” 5/12); the 80th of the capture of Wernher von Braun and many of his engineers (5/2) and the death of six civilians caused by a Japanese balloon bomb, the only civilian casualties in the USA Zone of Interior in WWII (5/5); the 85th of the first flight of the prototype of the Douglas SBD dive bomber (5/1); the 90th of Ellen Church becoming the first-ever flight attendant (5/15); the 95th of the opening of Chicago’s Adler Planetarium (5/12); the 110th of the sinking of the Lusitania (5/7); and the 115th of the creation of Glacier National Park (5/11) Birthdays: “Boy” Jockey Steve Cauthen is now 65 (5/1); actor Bruce Boxleitner (5/12) and singer Stevie Wonder (5/2) are 75; author Peter Benchley and singer Ricky Nelson would have been 85 (5/8); and cryptic-remarker Yogi Berra (5/12) and jazz trumpeter Al Porcino (5/14) would have been 100 In the Sky: The Moon reaches First Quarter at 9:52 AM EDT on Sunday, May 4; Full Moon occurs at 12:56 AM EDT on Tuesday, May 13 |