2004: The NASA Mars Rover Spirit, lands successfully on Mars.
1989: Two US Navy F-14 Tomcats shoot down two Libyan Air Force MiG-23s over the Mediterranean.
1964: Pope Paul VI lands in Amman, Jordan, in a special Alitalia DC-8; it is the first time that a pope has used an airplane for an official visit.
1958: Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth, falls out of orbit and back to terra firma.
1957: The Brooklyn Dodgers order a Convair CV-440 Metropolitan for $775,000, becoming the first major league baseball team to buy an airplane. Thanks to Dodger-owner Walter O’Malley’s friendship with Eastern Air Lines president Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker, the Dodgers are able to piggyback onto an Eastern order to get a plane directly from the Convair factory in San Diego.
1952: Pan American World Airways inaugurates the first all-cargo service across the North Atlantic with its recently acquired Douglas DC-6A cargo carrier.
1945: U.S. jeep-aircraft carrier Ommaney Bay sinks after twin-engine kamikaze bomber attacks and hits the deck filled with fueled aircraft.
