A Brief History On December 20, 1957, one of the most important flights in the history of passenger airlines took place when the Boeing 707 jetliner made its first flight. Although not the first jetliner to carry passengers, the 707 was the first successful commercial passenger jet, and remains in limited service today. Digging Deeper Developed from the Boeing prototype jetliner 367-80, circa 1954, the 707 also traces its lineage to the great Boeing bombers of the post-World War II era, the B-47 and the B-52. Like those bombers, the 707 has a relatively narrow fuselage and carries its 4…
Browsing: December 20
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A Brief History On December 20, 217 AD, reigning Pope Saint Zephyrinus died, replaced by Callixtus I as his successor. Not only did “Z” as we will call him have a name that strikes us today as a bit unusual, his actual birth name was Zepheniah. Digging Deeper The names Zephyrinus and Callixtus are just not chosen by new popes often, especially in more recent years, but in the old days such names were probably not so uncommon. Zephyrinus was Pope from 199 to 217, and was considered a martyr even though he did not die in defense of the…
A Brief History On December 20, 1941, the American Volunteer Group (AVG), better known by its nickname, the Flying Tigers, engaged in its first round of air-to-air combat when its fighters encountered Japanese “Sally” bombers. Just in case you do not know, the AVG was a group of American flyers under the command of Claire Chennault that flew for China against the Japanese. Digging Deeper As you can tell by the date above, by the time the AVG got into combat, the U.S. was already at war with Japan, which kind of defeated the purpose of using “volunteers” from supposedly uninvolved countries. A similar…
A Brief History On December 20, 1987, the passenger ferry Dona Paz sank with twice as many drowned as the Titanic! Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find around 1500 souls lost on the Titanic, and perhaps 4300 lost on the Dona Paz! Originally built and operated in Japan (1963), the Dona Paz was designed for only 608 passengers, although when operated in the Philippines after being sold in 1975 it was given a capacity of about 1500. On the fateful day of December 12, 1987, the ferry carried far more than the claimed roughly 1600 people, probably about 4000 or…