1899 – Birth of Harold John “Jackie” Walkerdine, British World War I flying ace and World War II pilot.
1919 – Death of Hans Christian Friedrich Donhauser, German World War I flying ace and smallest aviator in the German air force, in a crash near Coblenz, Germany.
1936 – Howard Hughes begins a record-breaking sprint across the U.S. from California to Newark, N.J., in just over nine hours at an average speed of 259 mph. He uses a Northrop Gamma specially fitted with a 1,000-hp Wright SR-1820-G2 radial engine.
1940 – First flight of the Yakovlev Yak-1 (shown) , a Soviet World War II single-seat fighter.
1945 – A kamikaze damages the escort carrier USS Salamaua (CVE-96) in the South China Sea off the mouth of Lingayen Gulf. It is the last successful kamikaze attack in the waters of the Philippine Islands.
2013 – French Dassault Mirage 2000D fighter-bombers hit Islamist targets in northern Mali, including attacks around Léré and Douentza and a strike on an Islamist rear headquarters in Gao, where they inflict dozens of casualties. French military transport aircraft bring several planeloads of French troops into Bamako.
