1892 – Birth of Norman MacMillan, Scottish World War I flying ace, test pilot and author who also served in World War II.
1918 – World War I flying aces James Keating, an American, and observer-gunner Edward Simpson, a Brit, shoot down four Fokker D.VII fighters with their Airco D.H.9, a biplane bomber.
1945 – U.S. Boeing B-29 Superfortress “Bockscar” drops the “Fat Man” plutonium-239 nuclear weapon on Nagasaki, Japan, which claims almost 100,ooo lives; it is the second atomic weapon used against the country, which surrenders six days later and brings an end to World War II.
1952 – Royal Navy Lt. Peter Carmichael claims the Fleet Air Arm’s first Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 kill by a Hawker Sea Fury from the H.M.S. Ocean; it is the only recorded victory of a British piston-engined aircraft over a jet fighter.
1996 – Sir Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine, dies at 89.
2005 – Space Shuttle Discovery (shown above) returns on Earth; the landing marks the completion of STS-114, the first mission since the Columbia disaster in 2003.
