One Hundred Years of Flight USAF Chronology ... - The Air University

1998
built to fly at an altitude of up to 65,000 feet and photograph an area
the size of Kentucky in 24 hours.
July 25: The Navy commissioned the USS Harry Truman, its eighth Nimitzclass
aircraft carrier, at Norfolk, Virginia.
August 20: The United States launched more than 75 Tomahawk land-attack
missiles from ships and submarines against terrorist targets in
Afghanistan and Sudan in retaliation for the bombings of US
Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on August 7 that killed 257 people.
September 22: The Air Force began airlifting relief supplies to the victims
of Hurricane Georges. Air Mobility Command, Air Force Reserve, and
Air National Guard transport crews delivered water, generators, construction
supplies, plastic sheeting, and ice from all over the United
States to Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and southern Mississippi,
flying at least 150 missions.
October 29: Former senator John H. Glenn, Jr., the first U.S. astronaut to
orbit Earth (1962), returned to space in the space shuttle Discovery to
test the effects of microgravity on the elderly. At 76 years of age, he was
the oldest person ever to enter space.
November 6: USAF transport crews and aircraft began airlifting 7.4 million
pounds of relief cargo to Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador
after those countries were devastated by Hurricane Mitch, which
claimed more than 10,000 lives. By the time the airlift ended on March
19, 1999, the crews had flown more than 200 missions.
December 4–15: The crew of the space shuttle Endeavour completed the first
International Space Station assembly mission, which involved delivery
and attachment of Unity, the first U.S. module, to Russia’s previously
launched Zarya module. The crew members also launched the USAF
MightySat I to evaluate composite materials, advanced solar cells, and
other technology.
December 9: President William J. Clinton awarded an honorary fourth star
to Gen. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., the first black USAF general and the
leader of the “Tuskegee Airmen” in World War II.
December 16: Operation DESERT FOX commenced with the launch of
cruise missiles and air strikes by the United States and Great Britain
against Iraqi targets after Iraq refused to allow United Nations
weapons inspectors to continue their work. The four-day operation,
which hit some 100 enemy sites, destroyed weapons-production facilities.
The largest air campaign against Iraq since the Southwest Asia
War of 1991, DESERT FOX involved the first combat use of B–1B
Lancer bombers.
153