1891 – Birth of Karl Emil Schäfer, German World War I fighter ace.
1903 – The Wright brothers make four flights in their Flyer at Kitty Hawk, N.C.; after years of dedicated research and development, Orville and Wilbur Wright fly 120 feet in the first practical airplane and on their fourth flight they manage 850 feet.
1941 – A Yokosuka E14Y floatplane (Allied reporting name “Glen”) launched by the Japanese submarine I-7 conducts a post-strike reconnaissance flight over Pearl Harbor; it is the E14Y’s combat debut.
1943 – Death of Joachim Kirschner, German World War II fighter ace; he is killed by a firing squad after bailing out from his Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-6, which was shot down by a Republic P-47D Thunderbolt over Croatia.
1956 – First flight of the Grumman E-1 Tracer (shown), American airborne early warning aircraft, derivative of the Grumman C-1 Trader.
1997 – Aerosvit Flight 241, a Yakovlev Yak-42, crashes into the side of Mount Pieria at 3,300 feet after a missed approach into Thessaloniki in Greece, killing all 70.