1918: Famous World War I flying ace Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker shoots down his 26th – and final – enemy aircraft over Rémonville, France.
1940: The Royal Air Force’s First Eagle Squadron, consisting of volunteer pilots from the United States, becomes operational. Thousands of Americans would apply, but only 244 were chosen for service during the early days of World War II.
1944: Pvt. Wilburn K. Ross almost single-handedly fights off a German attack that devastated his company. Pvt. Ross killed or wounded dozens of enemy soldiers, forcing a retreat.
Meanwhile in the Philippines, the new tactic of kamikaze attacks become an increasing threat, with Japanese planes striking the aircraft carriers USS Franklin and USS Belleau Wood. Over 100 sailors are killed and the crippled flattops must sail back to the United States for repairs.
USS Belleau Wood on fire with USS Franklin burning in the background
1954: The Defense Department announces that it has completed the process of eliminating racial segregation in the U.S. Armed Forces.
1961: On a remote island north of the Arctic Circle, a Soviet Air Force Tu-95 “Bear” bomber drops the Tsar Bomba, setting off the largest man-made explosion in human history. The 50-megaton device has ten times the explosive force of all conventional weapons dropped during World War II and was over 1,500 times stronger than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.
The blast is so powerful that windows are broken well over 500 miles away and the aircrew is only given a 50 percent chance of survival. A U.S. Air Force C-135 intelligence gathering plane on a secret mission to collect data on the blast is scorched by the heat wave and is removed from service after landing.
Tsar Bomba blast radius if dropped on Paris
