[Aktungbby]

1777: the USS Ranger, with a crew of 140 men under the command of John Paul Jones, leaves Portsmouth, NH, for the naval port at Brest, France, where it will stop before heading toward the Irish Sea to begin raids on British warships. This was the first mission of its kind during the American Revolution. 1942: General Montgomery breaks through Rommel's defensive line at El Alamein, Egypt, forcing a retreat. It was the beginning of the end of the Axis occupation of North Africa. 1947: The Hughes Flying Boat—the largest aircraft ever built—is piloted by designer Howard Hughes on its first and only flight. Built with laminated birch and spruce, the massive wooden aircraft had a wingspan longer than a football field and was designed to carry more than 700 men to battle. The aircraft had many detractors, and Congress demanded that Hughes prove the plane airworthy. Hughes obliged, taking the H-4 prototype out into Long Beach Harbor, CA for an unannounced flight test. Thousands of onlookers had come to watch the aircraft taxi on the water and were surprised when Hughes lifted his wooden behemoth 70 feet above the water and flew for a mile before landing. Today, the Spruce Goose is housed at the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, OR. My daughter worked as a docent at the museum and got to sit in the cockpit(for free!) enroute to her recently completed MA in museum science. I would hate to be the flight engineer on this BBYhttp://www.pbase.com/longbachnguyen/goose good photos!