The Hughes Flying Boat, at one time the largest aircraft ever built,
was piloted by designer Howard Hughes on its first and only flight
in Long Beach Harbor, California.

Built with laminated birch and spruce (hence the nickname the
Spruce Goose) the massive wooden aircraft had a wingspan
longer than a football field and was designed to carry more than
700 men to battle.

Howard Hughes was a successful Hollywood movie producer when
he founded the Hughes Aircraft Company in 1932. He personally
tested cutting-edge aircraft of his own design and in 1937 broke the transcontinental flight-time record.

Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (1905 – 1976)

The Spruce Goose is now on display at the Evergreen
Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon.

In one of the greatest upsets in presidential election
history, Democratic incumbent Harry S. Truman
defeats his Republican challenger, Governor Thomas
E. Dewey of New York, by just over two million popular
votes.

       
In the days preceding the vote, political analysts and
polls were so behind Dewey that on election night,
long before all the votes were counted, the Chicago
Tribune published an early edition with the banner
headline above, “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN.”          

Harry Truman (left) and his political rival Thomas Dewey.

Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster in that famous beach scene in
From Here to Eternity  (Columbia Pictures, 1953).