ROSS SIMPSON

Disneyland opened in Anaheim, CA. on this day in 1955. Walt Disney gave the opening day speech. Thousands of people attended the
event.

ROSS SIMPSON

On this day in 1969, Apollo 11 blasted off from Cape Kennedy, FL,
and began the first manned mission to land on the moon.

Nasa astronauts from left: Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin.

SANDY KOZEL

An artists depiction of the incident.

In the Persian Gulf on this day in 1988, the U.S. Navy cruiser Vincennes
shoots down an Iranian passenger jet that it mistakes for a hostile Iranian
fighter aircraft. Two missiles were fired from the American warship–the
aircraft was  hit, and all 290 people aboard were killed. The attack came
near the end of the Iran-Iraq War, when U.S. vessels were in the gulf
defending Kuwaiti oil tankers. Minutes before Iran Air Flight 655 was
shot down, the Vincennes had engaged Iranian gunboats that shot at
its helicopter.

Iran called the downing of the aircraft a “barbaric massacre,” but U.S.
officials defended the action, claiming that the aircraft was outside the
commercial jet flight corridor, flying at only 7,800 feet, and was on a
descent toward the Vincennes. However, one month later, the United
States acknowledged that the airbus was in the commercial flight
corridor, flying at 12,000 feet, and not descending. The U.S. Navy
report blamed crew error caused by psychological stress on men
who were in combat for the first time. In 1996, the U.S. agreed to pay
$62 million in damages to the families of the Iranians killed in the attack.       

CAMILLE
BOHANNON

   
    
  
Charles Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis on the way to Paris.

Crowds race to meet Charles Lindbergh after he lands the Spirit of St. Louis in Paris.

Charles Augustus Lindbergh
(February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974)

On May 20, 1932, Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland; she
landed in Ireland nearly 15 hours later, becoming the first woman
to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

Amelia Mary Earhart  (July 24, 1897; disappeared July 2, 1937)

SANDY KOZEL

The Hindenburg flies over Manhattan on May 6, 1937.

Hindenburg Crash Site Memorial today in Lakehurst, NJ .