This site, formerly known as Oakland Municipal Airport, served as the gateway to the Pacific during aviation’s pioneering age of trans-Pacific flight. Among other notable events, Albert Hegenberger and Lester Maitland departed from the airfield on 28 June 1927 on the first flight from the mainland to Hawaii, and Amelia Earhart landed here on 13 January 1935, completing the first-ever solo flight from Hawaii to the mainland.
USA
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Image Caption: Modern Oakland Municipal Airport aerial view
2002
On March 16, 1926 Dr. Robert H. Goddard, also known as "the father of modern rocketry," launched the world’s first liquid propellant rocket from a point 1000 feet S.S.E. of the plaque on the property of the Asa M. Ward Family. Erected by the American Rocket Society July 13, 1960 in recognition of this significant achievement in the evolution of astronautics.
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Image Caption: Dr. Robert H. Goddard and a liquid oxygen-gasoline rocket at Auburn, Massachusetts
2000
This rocket propulsion test complex was created to flight-certify all first and second stages of the Apollo Saturn V rocket. The first test-firing occurred on April 23, 1966. Subsequent to the Apollo Program, these test stands were modified to support the testing requirements of the Space Shuttle Main Engine. Every astronaut who traveled to the moon aboard Saturn V Rockets and into space aboard the Space Shuttle, did so on rocket stages and engines that were first proven flight-worthy on these test stands.
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Image Caption: J-2X Engine No. 10002 is test fired for the final time on the A-1 test stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center.
2007
The Cincinnati Observatory, “The Birthplace of American Astronomy,” is the oldest professional observatory in the United States. Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel, the “Father of American Astronomy,” founded the observatory in 1842. John Quincy Adams laid the cornerstone for the observatory on Mt. Ida, later renamed Mt. Adams. The original Merz und Mahler 11-inch refractor telescope was put into service in 1845 and is still in use here today on Mount Lookout.
Lunken Field, now also known as Cincinnati Municipal Lunken Airport, opened in 1925 on ground purchased from the Cincinnati Polo Club. The nation’s largest municipal airport at the time, it attracted several aerospace enterprises, starting with early aviator J. Richard “Dixie” Davis, who established his barnstorming enterprise there in 1925. In 1928, several other firms established enterprises at the field – each making history.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Wikicommons/redlegsfan21 (CC BY-SA 2.0)Image Caption: Cincinnati Municipal Airport – Lunken Field
2012
The 1940 Air Terminal is a beautiful and rare example of classic art deco airport architecture from the golden age of flight. Designed by noted architect Joseph Finger, the Terminal was built to meet Houston’s growing role as a major center for air commerce in the 1930s. Its grand opening by the City of Houston took place on September 28, 1940, at Houston Municipal Airport, now known as Hobby Airport.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Wikicommons/Mlickliter (CC BY-SA 3.0)Image Caption: The 1940 Air Terminal Museum
2008
This former shipyard was the first home of the The Boeing Company, founded in 1916. Affectionately called the Red Barn, this structure was built in 1909, and became the historic birthplace of Boeing aircraft production. Starting with the Boeing Model C, all early Boeing production took place in this building. Here, the entrepreneurial spirit of William E.
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Image Credit: public domainImage Caption: The Boeing Red Barn taken in 1937.
2002
On this 84-acre meadow in 1904 and 1905, the Wright Brothers successfully mastered the mechanics of controlled, powered, heavier-than-air flight. The brothers also built the world’s first airport here, and in 1910 the Wright Company School of Aviation established a flying school on the site and trained many of the world’s first pilots, including some of the first military pilots, such as Thomas DeWitt Milling.
Established in 1946 to provide a comprehensive test and evaluation site for tactical missiles, Point Mugu has been instrumental in the development, test, evaluation and in-service support of systems including Regulus, Sparrow, Phoenix, Bullpup, Harpoon, SLAM, Tomahawk, Standard, and Rolling Airframe Missile. The first missile launch from an operational submarine was also accomplished at Pt. Mugu.
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Image Caption: Aerial view of Naval Air Station Point Mugu — at Naval Base Ventura County, California, 2008
2003
College Park Airport was founded in 1909 when the Wright Brothers came here to train the first military officers to fly in the givernment's first airplane. The airport is the oldest continuously operated airport in the world, and has come to be known as "The Field of Firsts" due to it being the location of a great number of groundbreaking achievements, such as:
1909: First woman passenger to fly in the United States
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Image Caption: An early pilot flying a Curtiss aircraft at College Park, 1912
2003
Innovations
Like other American cities in the late 19th century, Baltimore had grown so quickly its supply system was unable to provide city residents with a dependable supply of water. Two reservoirs built outside the city helped increase capacity, but heavy rainfalls in the largely agricultural area…
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The significance of the 15-mile Whitewater Canal was not in its ability to create a profit, but rather its effect on the economic growth of the Whitewater River Valley, considered the gateway to the interior of Indiana. Before the canal, travel was challenging. Most waterways in Indiana…
Not only was Dunlap's Creek Bridge the first cast-iron bridge in America, it was the first metal bridge anywhere to use what its builder, Capt. Richard Delafield, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, described as "standardized, interchangeable, manufactured parts." The bridge was built as part of…
Designed by Sam Diescher, son-in-law of the Monongahela's designer John Endres, the Duquesne Incline opened May 20, 1877, as the second of seventeen built and operated in the Pittsburgh area. It has operated with only minor interruptions for the last one hundred years. A preservation group from…
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The Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge Branch of the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad extends from the town of Durango to the mining camp of Silverton. Built in 1882 through one of the most rugged mountain areas of the nation, its complexity remains a testament to the role civil…
In the decade following the Civil War, the Mississippi River began to lose its standing as the primary transport artery in the Midwest. Railroads were taking over, and Chicago was rapidly becoming the center of Midwestern commerce. The Eads Bridge was the first major railroad link over the…
Operated by the Philadelphia Electric Company (PECO), now known as Exelon Corp., Eddystone Station Unit #1 is a 325 MW pulverized-coal-fired plant that pushed the technology of steam-electric generating plants. When built in 1960, engineers sought to make a more efficient plant using higher…
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This dynamo, connected directly to a high-speed steam engine, was one of six that produced direct current at Thomas A. Edison's electric power station at 257 Pearl Street in New York City. The Pearl Street Station was the prototype for central station power generation. Edison set out in 1878 to…
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Edison's simple and unprecedented instrument allowed for the first time the permanent recording and reproduction of sound, especially the human voice. On December 6, 1877, Edison put tinfoil around the cylinder, turned the handle of the shaft and, shouting into one of the diaphragms, recorded a…
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Established in 1935 as the Valparaiso Bombing and Gunnery Base, the base supported the U.S. Army Air Corps, the predecessor to the U.S. Air Force, as its primary facility for training new pilots in bombing and gunnery tactics. It also served as a test facility for aircraft, aircraft armament,…
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One of the first major efforts to increase farming and encourage habitation in the arid regions of the western United States, the Rio Grande Project was designed to provide reliable irrigation as well as resolve a dispute over water supply with the Republic of Mexico. The project's centerpiece…
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The Wheeling Suspension Bridge was the first bridge to span the Ohio River. It was initially completed in 1849, but destroyed by a tornado five years later. The bridge was rebuilt in 1856. The replacement bridge has the same general appearance of the original structure; the massive towers,…
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The stone was set by the joint U.S.-Spanish survey party on April 10, 1799. Made of sandstone, it is roughly two feet high and eight inches thick. On the north side of the stone is the inscription "U.S. Lat. 31, 1799." On the south side is "Dominio de S.M. Carlos IV, Lat. 31, 1799."
…
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The Advanced Engine Test Facility was built in 1964, three years after President John F. Kennedy committed the United States to world leadership in aeronautical science. Conceived and designed by Wernher von Braun, the first director of the Marshall Space Flight Center, this facility was used to… Read More
In its day, the famous Erie Canal was the world's longest canal and America's greatest engineering feat. It was the principal route for emigrants from the East and agricultural products from the West. Before construction of the canal, New York City was the nation's fifth largest seaport, behind…
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This outboard motor, designed and built by Ole Evinrude (1877-1934) at the Evinrude Motor Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was quickly accepted by the boating public of the United States. Bess Evinrude called the prototype a "coffee grinder," but it moved a boat through water better than the huge… Read More
At a time when steam power was finding its first uses in America, Philadelphia opened two steam pumping stations, January 1801, to lift water from the Schuylkill River and distribute it through the city's wooden pipes and mains. By 1811 a new water power works was begun on the river near Morris…
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The F&CH Cable Railway, which opened in 1887, was designed and built by civil engineer Howard C. Holmes (1852-1921). The line is an amalgamation of the Powell Street Railway and the Park and Cliff House Railway. It was one of the most complicated cable-car systems to run from a single station… Read More
The Fink Deck Truss Bridge is thought to have been originally used on the Norfolk and Western mainline railway. It was moved to its present location and converted to a vehicular bridge over a railroad spur in 1893 when the Norfolk and Western mainline was moved. It was relocated again in 1985 to…
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Squeezing an orange for juice is part of the concept of this machine, only on a much larger scale. The extractor revolutionized the juice industry. The twenty-four head rotary action simultaneously extracts juice from the interior of the fruit and citrus oil from the peel surface. The first unit… Read More
