1912: Captain Charles Chandler and Lieutenants Thomas Milling and Henry Arnold are presented with certificates qualifying them as the U.S.’s first “Military Aviators.”

1927: Lady Bailey establishes a new light airplane altitude record of 17,283 feet, in a de Havilland D.H. 60 Moth, at the company’s airfield in Edgeware, Middlesex.

1940: The first American paratrooper unit is formed at Fort Benning, Georgia.

1944: The first U.S. rocket-powered military aircraft, the MX-324, flies at Harper Dry Lake, California. The pilot, Harry Crosby, makes the voyage.

1961: General Curtis LeMay of the Air Force, expresses interest in a bomber version of the A-12.The Q-bay located behind the cockpits (later the ANS bay) was envisioned as the bomb bay.

1979: French aviation pioneer and aircraft manufacturer Emile Dewoitine dies at the age of 87.