1892 – Birth of Fritz Gustav August Kosmahl, German World War I flying ace.
1923 – U.S. Army bombers, in a demonstration conducted by Brigadier Gen. Billy Mitchell, carry out anti-shipping exercises and sink the obsolete battleships U.S.S. Virginia and U.S.S. New Jersey.
1931 – Robert L. “Bob” Hall, the engineer of the Gee Bee Model Z (replica shown above), wins the General Tire and Rubber Trophy race in Cleveland, Ohio.
1957 – First flight of Mil Mi-6, a Soviet-Russian heavy transport helicopter.
1982 – Death of Sir Douglas Robert Steuart “Dogsbody” Bader, a Royal Air Force World War II fighter ace.
2012 – Wearing a white costume designed to induce endangered Siberian cranes to follow him, President of Russia Vladimir Putin pilots a motorized hang glider in three brief flights over Russia’s Yamal Peninsula in the Arctic, apparently the first time a Russian head of state has piloted an aircraft.
