1895 – Birth of Pavel Osipovich Sukhoi, Belarusian Soviet aircraft constructor and designer.
1918 – Indra Lal “Laddie” Roy, the first World War I Indian flying ace, dies in a dogfight with Fokker D.VIIs of Jasta 29 over France.
1933 – Wiley Post lands back at New York City’s Floyd Bennett Field in his Lockheed Vega “Winnie Mae,” completing the first round-the-world solo flight after seven days and 19 hours (a total distance of 15,596 miles).
1955 – First flight of the Republic XF-84H “Thunderscreech” (shown above), an American experimental turboprop aircraft derived from the F-84F Thunderstreak; it is powered by a turbine engine mated to a supersonic propeller.
1983 – Dick Smith completes the first solo circumnavigation of the globe in a helicopter; the 35,258-mile journey was done in stages using a Bell Jetranger 206B named “Australian Explorer.”
2011 – The Space Shuttle Atlantis returns to Earth at the end of STS-135, the final mission of the Space Shuttle Program.
