☞Look, Up In The Sky! It’s a Bird! It’s A Plane! It’s…
☞Look, Up In The Sky! It’s a Bird! It’s A Plane! It’s… ☞Today in History -- On today’s date 111 years ago, Tuesday, October 17, 1911, the famous Vin Fiz Flyer, the first powered æroplane to fly coast-to-coast across the United States, landed in Fort Worth, Texas. Pilot Calbraith Perry “Daredevil Cal” Rodgers (1879-1912) was attempting to win the $50,000 prize offered by publisher William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951) for the first transcontinental flight. ☞The Vin Fiz Flyer, a Wright Brothers Model B flying machine, was sponsored by J. Ogden Armour (1863-1927), the famous meat packer. The Vin Fiz was named after Armour’s new grape-flavored soft drink. ☞Ten thousand people came out to watch Daredevil Cal Rogers land in John C. Ryan’s cow pasture at the site of the present-day Ryan Place addition in Fort Worth. ☞Rodgers had left from Sheepshead Bay, New York, on September 17, 1911. On November 5, he landed at Tournament Park in Pasadena, California -- missing the prize deadline by...