1960: USS Enterprise, the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, is launched in Newport News, Virginia. CVN-65, nicknamed Big E, was the first carrier of its kind, powered solely by its eight nuclear reactors.
With nuclear power to propel it, the Enterprise does not need to carry its own fuel oil and has more room for aircraft and [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Warfare and Military’
Sept. 24, 1960: First Nuclear Carrier, USS Enterprise, Launched
September 24th, 2010 |
No Comments
Sept. 17, 1908: First Airplane Passenger Death
September 17th, 2010 |
No Comments
1908: During flight trials to win a contract from the U.S. Signal Army Corps, pilot Orville Wright and passenger Lt. Thomas Selfridge crash in a Wright Flyer at Fort Myer, Virginia. Wright is injured, and Selfridge becomes the first passenger to die in an airplane accident.
After Wilbur and Orville Wright made their historic first-ever airplane [...]
Sept. 1, 1974: New York to London in Less Than 2 Hours
September 1st, 2010 |
No Comments
1974: On a flight to the Farnborough Air Show outside London, Maj. James Sullivan and Maj. Noel Widdifield fly the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird from New York to London in 1 hour, 54 minutes, 56.4 seconds. The 1,806-mph flight still holds the transatlantic speed record between the two cities.
Developed during the middle of the cold war, [...]
Aug. 6, 1945: ‘I Am Become Death, Destroyer of Worlds’
August 6th, 2010 |
No Comments
1945: The United States becomes the first (and remains the only) country ever to use an atomic weapon in warfare, obliterating the Japanese city of Hiroshima and instantly killing 70,000 people. (Many thousands more would die later from the effects of radiation poisoning.) Three days later, the port city of Nagasaki is destroyed by a [...]
June 17, 1862: Worst Mashup Ever Has Farmers Tillin’ ‘n’ Killin’
June 17th, 2010 |
No Comments
1862: In the midst of the American Civil War, inventors W.H. Fancher and C.M. French of Waterloo, New York, successfully receive a patent for the “New and Improved Ordnance Plow,” a horse-drawn plow outfitted with a — get ready for it — firearm.
See also:
Photo Gallery
Mashup Inventions: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Now, why would [...]
June 16, 1922: Ich Bin ein Berliner Helicopter
June 16th, 2010 |
No Comments
By Robert Lemos
1922: Officials of the U.S. Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics watch Henry Berliner make the first controlled horizontal helicopter flight in the United States. Hovering takes a big step up … and forward.
Henry’s father, Emile Berliner, had made the first U.S. manned helicopter flight in 1908. Papa Berliner was nothing if not inventive. He [...]
June 2, 1954: Airplane Takes Off, Lands Vertically
June 2nd, 2010 |
No Comments
1954: A Convair XFY-1 Pogo aircraft makes a vertical takeoff and landing. It’s a milestone in the checkered history of VTOL aircraft.
Using designs captured from the Germans, the Navy and the newly formed Air Force crafted two design studies in 1947 for creating a fixed-wing vertical-takeoff-and-landing, or VTOL, aircraft. The goal of the project was [...]
May 21, 1956: Bikini Is Da Bomb
May 21st, 2010 |
No Comments
1956: The United States proves it can deliver a hydrogen bomb from the air — by dropping one on the small island group known as the Bikini Atoll. The B-52 bomber crew misses its target by a mile (well, 4 miles, actually) but the point is made: Nobody is safe from the most fearsome [...]
April 13, 1953: CIA OKs MK-ULTRA Mind-Control Tests
April 13th, 2010 |
No Comments
1953: Central Intelligence Agency director Allen Dulles authorizes the MK-ULTRA project. The agency launches one of its most dubious covert programs ever, turning unsuspecting humans into guinea pigs for its research into mind-altering drugs.
More than a decade before psychologist Timothy Leary advocated the benefits of LSD and urged everyone to “turn on, tune in, drop [...]
March 16, 1802: Army Engineers Get New Foundation
March 16th, 2010 |
No Comments
1802: An act of Congress establishes the Army Corps of Engineers. The corps will help shape the nation, literally.
General George Washington appointed the first U.S. Army engineers June 16, 1775, the day before he actually received his commission from the Continental Congress “to be General and Commander in chief, of the army of the United [...]
March 2, 1949: Around the World Without Landing
March 2nd, 2010 |
No Comments
1949: After 94 hours, 1 minute of flying time, a Boeing B-50 named Lucky Lady II lands at Carswell Air Force Base, Texas, completing the first ever nonstop, around-the-world trip by an airplane.
The flight covered 23,452 miles, averaging a ground speed of 249 miles per hour. The modified bomber required air-to-air refueling four times as it [...]
Feb. 9, 1870: Feds Get on Top of the Weather
February 9th, 2010 |
No Comments
1870: President Ulysses S. Grant signs a bill creating what we now call the National Weather Service. Forecasting models were simple but generally effective.
It had been obvious for centuries that weather in North America generally moves from west to east, or southwest to northeast. But other than looking upwind, that knowledge was little help in [...]
Feb. 1, 1951: TV Shows Atomic Blast, Live
February 1st, 2010 |
No Comments
1951: For the first time, television viewers witness the live detonation of an atomic bomb blast, as KTLA in Los Angeles broadcasts the blinding light produced by a nuclear device dropped on Frenchman Flats, Nevada.
See also:
Video Gallery:
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb Video
Photo Gallery:
Nuclear Blasts Show Terrifying Power
One of [...]
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb Video
February 1st, 2010 |
No Comments
<< previous image | next image >>
See also:
Feb. 1, 1951: TV Shows Atomic Blast, Live
Photo Gallery:
Nuclear Blasts Show Terrifying Power
Operation Ranger
Operation Ranger was a series of nuclear tests conducted at the Nevada Proving Ground (now called the Nevada Test Site) northwest of Las Vegas. Los Angeles TV station KTLA televised one blast from [...]
Dec. 1, 1942: Mandatory Gas Rationing, Lots of Whining
December 1st, 2009 |
No Comments
1942: Nearly a year after the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States fully into World War II, the Americans get around to imposing nationwide gasoline rationing.
A fuel shortage was not the problem. America had plenty of that. What it lacked was rubber. Both the Army and Navy were in desperate need [...]
Nov. 13, 1460: Death Stills Henry the Navigator
November 13th, 2009 |
No Comments
1460: Infante Henrique (Prince Henry), known to history as Henry the Navigator, dies at 66 in Sagres, Portugal. While not a seafaring man himself, Henry’s zealous advocacy and generous patronage of science, cartography and oceanic navigation effectively opens the age of European exploration.
Henry the Navigator was the third son of Portugal’s King João I, whose [...]
Nov. 6, 1944 & 1971: A Double Nuke Anniversary
November 6th, 2009 |
No Comments
1944: Weapons-grade plutonium, for the very heart of the Fat Man atomic bomb used to obliterate Nagasaki, Japan, is first produced at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in south-central Washington state. Twenty-seven years later, in 1971, the Atomic Energy Commission detonates the largest U.S. underground hydrogen device, during testing in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.
The development of weapons-grade [...]