Do you need to fact check, or are you just curious as to what happened today in aviation history?

May 26th in aviation history:

* In 1923… Lieutenant H. G. Crocker lands at Gordon, Ontario, to complete a non-stop transcontinental south/north flight from Houston, Texas, of 11 hours, 55 minutes. (AYY)
* In 1942… The Northrop XP-61 Black Widow night fighter prototype flies for the first time. (AYY) [Such a a cool aircraft!]
* In 1970… The prototype Tupolev Tu-144 supersonic airliner reaches a speed of 1,335mph, becoming the first commercial transport in the world to exceed Mach 2. (AYY)
* In 1972… Cessna Aircraft Corporation announces completion of the company’s 100,000th aircraft, becoming the first company in the world to achieve such a production figure. (OTM) [I’ve been a traveler in 172s, 180s, 182s, 205s, 206s, 210s, 214s….and on only a few occasions did I land with the plane]

U.S. Centennial of Flight has a searchable timeline part of the site to give you a hand.There is a section for educators that links to events month by month, that may be a good place to generate some ideas for blogging history.

Just a reminder to all those who try to profess they say they know what history will record at the moment something happens:

In 1967, when Governor Reagan and Senator Robert Kennedy debated a group of international college students, interesting things were said…

It sure seems to have taken a long time for a historian to remind us of this.

While not a total revelation — it was caught by a few early Reagan biographers — there was an event that occurred 40 years ago this month that has gone underreported and certainly unappreciated. The event concerns not only Reagan’s political life but that of an equally well-known rising star of the time: Robert F. Kennedy. It should be a permanent part of our mental history of Reagan’s rise, if not a permanent video exhibit at the Reagan Library and Museum.

On May 15, 1967, there was a fascinating debate between California’s new Republican governor, Ronald Reagan, and New York’s new Democratic senator, Robert F. Kennedy. The subject: the Vietnam War. The debate was titled “The Image of America and the Youth of the World,” and was billed by CBS as a “Town Meeting of the World.”
[…]

And, that wasn’t exactly what Governor Reagan said in 1967, but he did say the wall should be removed.

H/T: Chapomatic