THIS DAY IN HISTORY

US Planes Embark on First Successful Aerial Circumnavigation Attempt (1924) Discuss

Just two decades after the first successful powered flight, pilots from the US Army Air Service completed the first aerial circumnavigation of the globe. The trip took 175 days, and not all of it was smooth sailing—or flying, as it were. Weeks after the group of four airplanes set out from Seattle, Washington, one crashed in Alaska. Luckily, the crew survived, as did that of another of the planes, which later went down over the Atlantic. How many of the original planes completed the journey? More...