1759 - Birth of Vincenzo Lunardi, Italian balloonist pionneer.
1804 - Death of James Tytler, Scottish apothecary and editor of the second edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, 1st person in Britain to steer a hot air balloon.
1864 - Birth of Augusto Severo, Brazilian Aeronaut and inventor.
1884 - Birth of Bernetta Adams Miller, American pioneering woman aviator who was the 5th licensed woman pilot in the USA.
1892 - Birth of Edward Rochfort Grange, Canadian WWI flying ace credited with 5 aerial victories. His postwar career included success as a businessman, and a return to aviation as a civilian inspector and auditor for the Royal Canadian Air Force during WWII
1893 - Birth of Georg Meyer, German WWI fighter ace.
1894 - Birth of Lawrence Kingsley Callahan, American WWI flying ace.
1895 - Birth of Johann Risztics, Austro Hugarian WWI flying ace, known with fellow pilots Fredrich Hefty and Ferdinand Udvardy as the Arany Triumviratus (Golden Triumvirate). He also was a Raid Aviator After WWI.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Risztics - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/austrhun/risztics.php
1895 - Birth of Laurens Hammond, American engineer and inventor (most famously, the Hammond organ, the Hammond Clock, and the world's 1st polyphonic musical synthesizer, the Novachord). In WWII he helped design guided missile controls and was awarded patents for infrared and light sensing devices for bomb guidance, glide bomb controls, a camera shutter and a new type of gyroscope.
1896 - Birth of William Samuel Stephenson, Canadian WWI fighter ace, businessman, inventor, spymaster, considered as the real-life inspirations for James Bond.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Stephenson - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/stephenson2.php
1900 - Birth of Enea Silvio Recagno, Italian raid Aviator.
1901 - Birth of Kwon Ki-ok, 1st Korean female aviator, as well as being the 1st female pilot in China.
1917 - WWI Royal Navy seaplane carrier HMS Ben-my-Chree is sunk by Turkish gun battery at anchor in a bay, off the island of Castellorizo, greece, only aviation ship of any nationality sunk by enemy action during WWI.
1918 - Death of Hans Kummetz, German WWI flying ace, Killed in action in Italy.
1919 - Death of Dante Nannini Sandoval, Guatemala WWI fighter pilot who served in the Italian Regia Aeronautica, he could have been the "1st American pilot" to join a regiment of aviators during WWI. At least, he was the 1st "American" on the Italian front
1922 - Birth of Neville Frederick Duke, British WWII fighter pilot, top Allied flying ace in the Mediterranean Theatre and test pilot.
1926 - Birth of Lev Stepanovich Dyomin, Soviet cosmonaut
1931 - 1st flight of The Abbott-Baynes Scud 1, British parasol-winged single seat glider intended to introduce pilots to soaring flight.
1932 - French Paul Codos and Henri Robida land the Breguet Bre 330 n°1 Bis in Hanoi after a 7 days 9hr and 50min trip from Paris
1933 - 1st flight of The Vickers Type 207, British single-engined two-seat biplane designed as a ship-born torpedo bomber prototype.
1934 - A flight of six US Navy Consolidated P2Y flying boats arrives in Pearl harbour from San Francisco, setting a new distance record for formation flying, 2,400 miles (3,862 km), also setting a new speed record for this crossing of 24 hours 35 minutes.
1935 - Amelia Earhart takes off from Wheeler Field, Oahu, Honolulu, to fly her Lockheed Vega across the eastern Pacific to Oakland, California. Earhart will be the 1st woman pilot to fly solo between Hawaii and the USA.
1938 - Death of Edwin Charles Musick, Chief Pilot for Pan American World Airways and pioneer of many of Pan Am's transoceanic routes including the famous route across the Pacific Ocean on the China Clipper. Killed in the explosion of the Samoan Clipper, A Sikorsky S-42 flying boat, while dumping fuel before attempting an emergency landing.
1941 - 1st flight of The Polikarpov I-185, Soviet prototype fighter aircraft
1944 - James Howell 'Jim' Howard single-handedly flew his P-51B into some 30 Luftwaffe fighters that were attacking a formation of American B-17 Flying Fortress bombers of the 401st Bomb Group over Oschersleben, Germany for over Half an Hour, scoring 3/4 and damaging 1. Out of ammunition, he continued to dive on enemy airplanes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_H._Howard#Military_service - http://cieldegloire.com/014_howard_j_h.php
1947 - BOAC Douglas C-47A crashed into a hill at Stowting, Kent, in southeast England whilst attempting to land at Lympne Airport, after the pilot attempted to divert to many french airports before flying back to UK due to poor weather and being short of fuel.
1947 - 1st flight of The McDonnell F2H Banshee, US single-seat carrier-based jet fighter aircraft
1948 - Death of Karl Menckhoff, German WWI fighter ace, one of the oldest pilots in the Imperial German Aviation Service.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Menckhoff - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/menckhoff.php
1949 - 1st flight of the Sukhoi Su-15 (Aircraft P), Soviet twin-engined jet all-weather interceptor prototype.
1958 - 1st flight of the Boeing 707-320 Intercontinental, stretched version of the turbojet-powered 707-120 american jet Airliner.
1959 - Lufthansa Flight 502 Lockheed L-1049G Super Constellation on approach to Rio de Janeiro-Galeão International Airport, crashed near Flecheiras Beach just short of the runway, killing 36 over 39
1960 - 1st fligth of the Merville SM 31, French glider
1962 - A B-52H Stratofortress lands at Torrejon Air Base, Spain . From Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan, it sets a new world distance record without refueling of 12,532.28 miles (10,895 nmi, 20,177 km).
1965 - 1st transitional flight by taking off vertically, changing to forward flight and finally landing vertically of the Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV) XC-142, American tiltwing experimental aircraft designed to investigate the operational suitability of vertical/short takeoff and landing transports.
1967 - Death of William Wendell Rogers, Canadian WWI flying ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wendell_Rogers - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/rogers2.php
1968 - Launch of GEOS 2 (GEOS-B), NASA Geodetic earth monitoring satellite.
1969 - Death of William Roy 'Sambo' Irwin, Canadian WWI fighter ace.
1972 - Death of Ettore Cattaneo, Italian dentist and aviation pioneer in the domains of gliding, aviation and rocket, nicknamed the flying dentist.
1978 - 1st flight of The Gulfstream American Hustler 400, American prototype mixed-power executive/utility aircraft designed by American Jet Industries (later Gulfstream American). The aircraft had a nose-mounted turbprop and with a tail-mounted turbofan.
1981 – Maxie Anderson and Don Ida launch from Luxor, Egypt, in the balloon 'Jules Verne' to begin the 1st serious attempt at a circumnavigation of the world by balloon.
1981 - Death of Hubert Cecil Hunt, British WWI flying ace.
1988 - Death of Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, USMC WWII fighter ace.
1989 - 1st flight of The AASI Jetcruzer 450, American 6 seat single turboprop light civil transport made by AASI with an unusual configuration, a single turboprop engine driving a pusher propeller, prominent canards, and fins mounted at the ends of its swept wings, noteworthy in being the 1st aircraft to have achieved a spin resistance certification from the United States FAA.
1992 - US FAA approves a helicopter rating for a pilot based solely on flight simulator performance for the 1st time.
1995 - Death of Johannes "Hannes" Trautloft , German fighter ace of Spanish war and WWII, High ranking officer and deputy postwar.
1995 - Intercontinental de Aviación Flight 256, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 14 crashed on approach near Maria La Baja, killing 51 over 52.
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19950110-1&lang=en - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercontinental_de_Aviaci%C3%B3n#Accidents_and_incidents
1996 – Launch of STS-72, Space Shuttle Endeavour mission to capture and return to Earth a Japanese microgravity research spacecraft known as Space Flyer Unit.
2004 - Launch of Estrela do Sul 1 (Southern Star 1), also known as Telstar 14, Brazilian commercial communications satellite.
2007 - In a test of an anti-satellite missile, China destroyes its weather satellite Feng-Yun FY-1C.
2011 - 1st flight of The Chengdu J-20, Chinese twin-engine fighter aircraft prototype, 5th generation stealth aircraft type.
2011 - Global Observer, American unmanned aircraft system has successfully completed its historic 1st flight powered by the aircraft’s hydrogen-fueled propulsion system at Edwards Air Force Base (EAFB) in California
2013 - 1st full test flight of the Euro Hawk, European variant of the Surveillance unmanned aerial vehicle Northrop Grumman RQ-4B Global Hawk.