Newest Air Force stealth bomber, the $750M B-21 Raider,
takes to the air for the time. 

    6-25-1997

On this day in history, June 24, 1997, the U.S. Air Force released
a 232-page report titled "The Roswell Report: Case Closed,"
about a mysterious incident near Roswell, New Mexico, that
some believe was a UFO crash-landing on Earth.

The report was the second part of the government’s official
disclosure about what was found in rural New Mexico in the
1940s. Back in 1994, the government published, "The Roswell
Report: Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert."

"The ‘Roswell Incident’ has assumed a central place in American
folklore since the events of the 1940s in a remote area of New
Mexico," noted the foreword of the 1997 report, written by
Secretary of the Air Force Sheila A. Widnall (below).         
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
Sheila Marie Evans Widnall

On June 3, 1965, 120 miles above the Earth, Major Edward H.
White II opened the hatch of the Gemini 4 and stepped out of
the capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to walk in
space. Attached to the craft by a 25-foot tether and controlling
his movements with a hand-held oxygen jet-propulsion gun,
White remained outside the capsule for just over 20 minutes. 

On May 17, 1943, the crew of the Memphis Belle, one of a group
of American bombers based in Britain, became one of the first
B-17 crews to complete 25 missions over Europe and return to
the United States.

The Memphis Belle performed its 25th and last mission, in a
bombing raid against Lorient, a German submarine base.

Visitors gather for a private viewing of the Memphis Belle,
a Boeing B-17 “Flying Fortress,” at the National Museum
of the U.S. Air Force.

      
U.S. Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager became the first person
to fly faster than the speed of sound.
        
        
        

Yeager, born in Myra, West Virginia, in 1923, was a combat fighter
during World War II and flew 64 missions over Europe. He shot
down 13 German planes and was himself shot down over France,
but he escaped capture with the assistance of the French
Underground.

After the war, he was among several volunteers chosen to test-fly
the experimental X-1 rocket plane, built by the Bell Aircraft
Company to explore the possibility of supersonic flight.

On October 14, 1947, Yeager flew the X-1 over Rogers Dry Lake in Southern California. The craft was lifted to an altitude of 25,000
feet by a B-29 aircraft and then released through the bomb bay,
rocketing to 40,000 feet and exceeding 662 miles per hour
(the sound barrier at that altitude).

Because of the secrecy of the project, Yeager’s achievement was not announced until June 1948. Yeager continued to serve as a test pilot,
and in 1953 he flew 1,650 miles per hour in an X-1A rocket plane.

He retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1975 with the rank of brigadier.

    
        
 
Brigadier General Charles Elwood Yeager
(February 13, 1923 – December 7, 2020)