[Featured image: Maj. Robert M. White – the first man to fly four times the speed of sound – climbing out of the cockpit of his X-15 rocketplane. (USAF photo)]
1945: U.S. Army armored forces race to seize the strategically vital Ludendorff Bridge (also known as the Remagen bridge) before the Germans blow the structure. The Americans are successful, thus enabling the allies to establish a bridgehead on the enemy side of the Rhine River.
1961: Air Force Maj. Robert M. White’s North American Aviation X-15 rocketplane breaks away from a B-52 “Stratofortress,” streaking through the desert sky to a record of 2,905 miles per hour. White, a fighter jock in both World War II and the Korean War before becoming a test pilot, is the first man to fly Mach 4.
1966: Air Force and Navy pilots fly over 200 sorties against a North Vietnamese oil storage facility and a staging area – the most action American airmen have seen since Operation ROLLING THUNDER began just over a year ago.
1972: President Richard Nixon expands the range that U.S. warplanes are allowed to target North Vietnamese anti-aircraft sites to 120 miles north of the Demilitarized Zone. The 86 air raids flown against the Communists in just the first two months of 1972 equal the number for all of 1971.
Pres. George W. Bush delivers his ultimatum to Saddam in 2003.
2003: Pres. George W. Bush delivers an ultimatum: “Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours.” In less than two weeks, the U.S. military will invade Iraq.
