Air Force One

Air Force One is the official air traffic control call sign of any United States Air Force aircraft carrying the President of the United States.Air Force One is a prominent symbol of the American presidency and its power,and the aircraft are among the most famous and most photographed in the world.

Air Force One History

On October 11, 1910, Theodore Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to fly in an aircraft, although at the time of the flight in an early Wright Flyer from  Kinloch Field (near St. Louis, Missouri), he was no longer in office, having been succeeded by William Howard Taft. The record-making occasion was a brief. overflight of the crowd at a country fair but was nonetheless, the beginning of presidential air travel.

After Roosevelt died in spring 1945, Vice President Harry S. Truman became President. The legislation that created the U.S. Air Force, the National Security Act of 1947, was signed by Truman while on board the VC-54C.[7] He replaced the VC-54C in 1947 with a modified C-118 Liftmaster,calling it the Independence (also the name of Truman's hometown in Missouri). This was the first aircraft acting as Air Force One that had a distinctive exterior– a bald eagle head painted on its nose.

NO	RANK	NAME	TERM	PREDIDENT
1	Lieutenant Colonel	Henry T. Myers	June 1944 – April 1945	Franklin Roosevelt
1	Lieutenant Colonel	Henry T. Myers	April 1945 – January 1948	Harry Truman
2	Colonel	Francis W.Williams	January 1948 – January 1953	Harry Truman
3	Colonel	William G. Draper	January 1953 – January 1961	Dwight Eisenhower
4	Colonel	James Swindal	January 1961 – November 1963	John F. Kennedy
4	Colonel	James Swindal	November 1963 – July 1965	Lyndon Johnson
5	Colonel	James U. Cross	July 1965 – May 1968	Lyndon Johnson
6	Lieutenant Colonel	Paul Thornhill	May 1968 – January 1969	Lyndon Johnson
7	Colonel	Ralph D. Albertazzie	January 1969 – August 1974	Richard Nixon
8	Colonel	Lester C. McClelland	August 1974 – January 1977	Gerald Ford
8	Colonel	Lester C. McClelland	January 1977 – April 1980	Jimmy Carter
9	Colonel	Robert E. Ruddick	April 1980 – January 1981	Jimmy Carter
10	Lieutenant Colonel	Richard J. Klinker	January 1981 – January 1989	Ronald Reagan
11	Colonel	Robert D. “Danny” Barr[	January 1989 – January 1993	George H. W. Bush
11	Colonel	Robert D. “Danny” Barr[	January 1993 – January 1997	Bill Clinton
12	Colonel	Mark S. Donnelly	January 1997 – January 2001	Bill Clinton
12	Colonel	Mark S. Donnelly	January 2001 – June 2001	George W. Bush
13	Colonel	Mark W. Tillman	June 2001 – January 2009	George W. Bush
14	Colonel	Mark W. Tillman	January 2009 – Present	Barack Obama

Other presidential aircraft

United Airlines was the only commercial airline to have operated Executive One, the designation given to a civilian flight on which the U.S. President is aboard.  

 On December 26, 1973, then-President Richard Nixon flew as a passenger aboard a Washington Dulles to Los Angeles International flight. It was explained by his

staff that this was done in order to conserve fuel by not having to fly the usual Boeing 707 Air Force aircraft.

In November 1999, President Bill Clinton flew from Ankara, Turkey, to Cengiz Topel Naval Air Station outside Izmit, Turkey, aboard a marked C-20C (Gulfstream III)

using the call sign "Air Force One", escorted by three F-16s.

On March 8, 2000, President Bill Clinton flew to Pakistan aboard an unmarked Gulfstream III while another aircraft with the call sign "Air Force One" flew on the

same route a few minutes later. This diversion was reported by several U.S. press outlets.

In May 2009, President Barack Obama took the first lady on a date to New York City in a Gulfstream 500. On July 16, 2010, the Obama family flew to Maine for

vacation in a Gulfstream III painted in presidential colors.

The president also flies in Marine One helicopters operated by the U.S. Marine Corps.

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an Executive Branch agency of the United States government, responsible for the nation's civilian space program and aeronautics and aerospace research. Since February 2006, NASA's self-described mission statement is to "pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research".

NASA

On July 29, 1958, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, establishing NASA. When it began operations on October 1, 1958, NASA absorbed the 46-year-old NACA intact; its 8,000 employees, an annual budget of US$100 million, three major research laboratories (Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, Ames Aeronautical Laboratory, and Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory) and two small test facilities.

 
                                  

Apollo program

The Apollo program landed the first humans on Earth's Moon. Apollo 11 landed on the moon on July 20, 1969 with astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, while Michael Collins orbited above. Five subsequent Apollo missions also landed astronauts on the Moon, the last in December 1972. In these six Apollo spaceflights twelve men walked on the Moon. These missions returned a wealth of scientific data and 381.7 kilograms (842 lb) of lunar samples. Experiments included soil mechanics, meteoroids, seismic, heat flow, lunar ranging, magnetic fields, and solar wind experiments.

                                       

International Space Station

The International Space Station (ISS) is an internationally developed research facility currently being assembled in Low Earth Orbit. On-orbit construction of the station began in 1998 and is scheduled to be completed by 2011, with operations continuing until at least 2015.[28] The station can be seen from the Earth with the naked eye, and, as of 2009, is the largest artificial satellite in Earth orbit, with a mass larger than that of any previous space station.

                                           

NASA's future

An improved and larger planetary rover, Mars Science Laboratory, is under construction and slated to launch in 2011, after a slight delay caused by hardware challenges, which has bumped it back from the October 2009 scheduled launch.[38] The New Horizons mission to Pluto was launched in 2006 and will fly by Pluto in 2015. The probe received a gravity assist from Jupiter in February 2007, examining some of Jupiter's inner moons and testing on-board instruments during the fly-by. On the horizon of NASA's plans is the MAVEN spacecraft as part of the Mars Scout Program to study the atmosphere of Mars.

                                   

Controversy

In 2009, NASA announced that the agency plans to provide $1.75 million in funding to Jack Bergman of Harvard’s McLean Hospital to conduct an experiment on monkeys to determine the health effects of radiation exposure during travel in deep space.[60] The plan has faced opposition from animal rights groups such as PETA and HSUS, a physicians’ group PCRM, and several federal legislators lead by Representative Jim Moran of Virginia[61] who claim that the grant should be cancelled because during the course of the experiment, the primates will likely contract malignant tumors as well as blindness, skin damage, cognitive decline, premature aging and death. PCRM also claims that the proposed use and isolation of primates would violate NASA's stated principles regarding animal ethics. The group has filed a federal complaint alleging that the experiments would also violate the Animal Welfare Act

Martin Luther King, Jr

Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African American civil rights movement.He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi.King is often presented as a heroic leader in the history of modern American liberalism.

Sermons and speeches

All I'm saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated, that somehow we're caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.

— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

NAME	Martin Luther King, Jr
DATE OF BIRTH	January 15, 1929
BIRTH PLACE	Atlanta, Georgia, United States
SPECIAL	Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
RELIGION	Progressive National Baptist Convention
AWARDS	Nobel Peace Prize (1964), Presidential Medal of Freedom (1977, posthumous), Congressional Gold Medal (2004, posthumous)
POLITICAL MOVEMENT	African-American Civil Rights Movement, Peace movement
DIED	April 4, 1968 (aged 39)
RESTING PLACE	Memphis, Tennessee, United States

Stance on compensation

Martin Luther King Jr. expressed a view that black Americans, as well as other disadvantaged Americans, should be compensated for historical wrongs. In an interview conducted for Playboy in 1965, he said that granting black Americans only equality could not realistically close the economic gap between them and whites. King said that he did not seek a full restitution of wages lost to slavery, which he believed impossible, but proposed a government compensatory program of US$50 billion over ten years to all disadvantaged groups. He posited that "the money spent would be more than amply justified by the benefits that would accrue to the nation through a spectacular decline in school dropouts, family breakups, crime rates, illegitimacy, swollen relief rolls, rioting and other social evils".

Bloody Sunday 1965

King, James Bevel, and the SCLC, in partial collaboration with SNCC, attempted to organize a march from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery, for March 7, 1965. The first attempt to march on March 7 was aborted because of mob and police violence against the demonstrators. This day has since become known as Bloody Sunday. Bloody Sunday was a major turning point in the effort to gain public support for the Civil Rights Movement, the clearest demonstration up to that time of the dramatic potential of King's nonviolence strategy. King, however, was not present. After meeting with President Lyndon B. Johnson, he decided not to endorse the march, but it was carried out against his wishes and without his presence on March 7 by the director of the Selma Movement, James Bevel, and by local civil rights leaders. Footage of police brutality against the protesters was broadcast extensively and aroused national public outrage.

Opposition to the Vietnam War

King spoke at an Anti-Vietnam demonstration where he also brought up issues of civil rights and the draft.I have not urged a mechanical fusion of the civil rights and peace movements. There are people who have come to see the moral imperative of equality, but who cannot yet see the moral imperative of world brotherhood. I would like to see the fervor of the civil-rights movement imbued into the peace movement to instill it with greater strength. And I believe everyone has a duty to be in both the civil-rights and peace movements. But for those who presently choose but one, I would hope they will finally come to see the moral roots common to both.

In 1967, King gave another speech, in which he lashed out against what he called the "cruel irony" of American blacks fighting and dying for a country which treated them as second class citizens:

We were taking the young black men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties which they had not found in Southwest Georgia and East Harlem.... We have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them in the same schools.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

At the White House Rose Garden on November 2, 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating a federal holiday to honor King. Observed for the first time on January 20, 1986, it is called Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Following President George H. W. Bush's 1992 proclamation, the holiday is observed on the third Monday of January each year, near the time of King's birthday.[200] On January 17, 2000, for the first time, Martin Luther King Jr. Day was officially observed in all fifty U.S. states.

Awards and recognition

King was awarded at least fifty honorary degrees from colleges and universities in the U.S. and elsewhere. Besides winning the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, in 1965 King was awarded the American Liberties Medallion by the American Jewish Committee for his "exceptional advancement of the principles of human liberty".Reverend King said in his acceptance remarks, "Freedom is one thing. You have it all or you are not free". King was also awarded the Pacem in Terris Award, named after a 1963 encyclical letter by Pope John XXIII calling for all people to strive for peace.

In 1966, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America awarded King the Margaret Sanger Award for "his courageous resistance to bigotry and his lifelong dedication to the advancement of social justice and human dignity." King was posthumously awarded the Marcus Garvey Prize for Human Rights by Jamaica in 1968.

In 1971, King was posthumously awarded the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for his Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam. Six years later, the Presidential Medal of Freedom was awarded to King by Jimmy Carter. King and his wife were also awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004.

Assassination

In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and racial discrimination through civil disobedience and other nonviolent means. By the time of his death in 1968, he had refocused his efforts on ending poverty and stopping the Vietnam War.King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and Congressional Gold Medal in 2004; Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a U.S. federal holiday in 1986.

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led the country through its greatest internal crisis, the American Civil War, preserved the Union, and ended slavery.

Marriage and family

Lincoln's first romantic interest was Ann Rutledge, whom he met when he first moved to New Salem; by 1835, they were in a relationship but not formally engaged. Ann wanted to notify a former love before "consummating the engagement to Mr. L. with marriage." Rutledge died, however, on August 25, most likely of typhoid fever.

Early national politics

In 1846, Lincoln was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served one two-year term.[59] He was the only Whig in the Illinois delegation, but showed his party loyalty by participating in almost all votes and making speeches that echoed the party line.

NAME	Abraham Lincoln
DATE OF BIRTH	February 12, 1809
BIRTH PLACE	Hardin County, Kentucky
SPECIAL	16th President of the United States
IN OFFICE	March 4, 1861 – April 15, 1865
POLITICAL PARTY	Whig (1832–1854), Republican (1854–1865)
PROFESSION	Lawyer, Politician
MILITARY SERVICE	Illinois Militia, 1832 , Black Hawk War
DIED	April 15, 1865 (aged 56) ,Washington, D.C.
RESTING PLACE	Oak Ridge Cemetery , Springfield, Illinois

On May 9–10, 1860, the Illinois Republican State Convention was held in Decatur.[106] Lincoln's followers organized a campaign team led by David Davis, Norman Judd, Leonard Swett, and Jesse DuBois, and Lincoln received his first endorsement to run for the presidency.[107] Tapping on the distorted legend of his pioneering days with his father, Lincoln's supporters adopted the label of "The Rail Candidate."[108] On May 18, at the 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Lincoln became the Republican candidate on the third ballot, beating candidates such as William H. Seward and Salmon P. Chase.[109] Former Democrat Hannibal Hamlin of Maine received the nomination for Vice President to balance the ticket. Lincoln's nomination has been attributed in part to his moderate views on slavery, as well as his support of internal improvements and the protective tariff. In terms of the actual balloting, Pennsylvania put him over the top.

Presidency

On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected as the sixteenth president of the United States, beating Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, John C. Breckinridge of the Southern Democrats, and John Bell of the new Constitutional Union Party.The American Civil War (1861–1865), also known as the War Between the States (among other names), was a civil war in the United States of America. Eleven Southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America, also known as "the Confederacy." Led by Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy fought against the United States (the Union), which was supported by all the free states (where slavery had been abolished) and by five slave states that became known as the border states.

Assassination

In 1864, John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor and a Confederate spy from Maryland, formulated a plan to kidnap Lincoln in exchange for the release of Confederate prisoners. After attending an April 11 speech in which Lincoln promoted voting rights for blacks, an incensed Booth changed his plans and became determined to assassinate the president.[227] Learning that the President and First Lady would be attending Ford's Theatre, Booth formulated a plan with co-conspirators to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward. Without his main bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon, Lincoln left to attend the play Our American Cousin on April 14, 1865, Lincoln's bodyguard, John Parker, left Ford's Theater during intermission to join Lincoln's coachman for drinks in the Star Saloon next door. The now unguarded President sat in his state box in the balcony. Seizing the opportunity, Booth crept up from behind and at about 10:13 p.m., aimed at the back of Lincoln's head and fired at point-blank range, mortally wounding the President. Major Henry Rathbone momentarily grappled with Booth but Booth stabbed him and escaped

World Trade Center

The World Trade Center (WTC) was a complex of seven buildings in Lower Manhattan in New York City that were destroyed in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with six new skyscrapers and a memorial to the casualties of the attacks.

NAME	World Trade Center
LOCATION	New York City
ARCHITECT	Minoru Yamasaki , Emery Roth & Sons
GROUNDBREAKING	August 25, 1966
OPENED	April 4, 1973
OWNER	Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
HEIGHT	13.4 million square feet
TERRORIST ATTACK	February 26, 1993 bombing, September 11, 2001
DESTROYED	September 11, 2001

Planning and construction
The complex was located in the heart of New York City's downtown financial district and contained 13.4 million square feet (1.24 million m2) of office space.The final building constructed was 7 World Trade Center, which was built in 1985. The World Trade Center experienced a fire on February 13, 1975, and a bombing on February 26, 1993. In 1998, the Port Authority decided to privatize the World Trade Center, leasing the buildings to a private company to manage, and awarded the lease to Silverstein Properties in July 2001.

February 13, 1975 fire
On February 26, 1993, at 12:17 p.m., a Ryder truck filled with 1,500 pounds (680 kg) of explosives, planted by Ramzi Yousef, detonated in the underground garage of the North Tower.[91] The blast opened a 100 foot (30 m) hole through five sublevels with the greatest damage occurring on levels B1 and B2 and significant structural damage on level B3.[92] Six people were killed and 50,000 other workers and visitors were left gasping for air within the 110 story towers.

Destruction
In the morning of September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda-affiliated hijackers flew two 767 jets into the complex, one into each tower, in a coordinated terrorist attack. After burning for 56 minutes, the South Tower (2) collapsed, followed a half-hour later by the North Tower , with the attacks on the World Trade Center resulting in 2,752 deaths. 7 World Trade Center collapsed later in the day and the other buildings, although they did not collapse, had to be demolished because they were damaged beyond repair. The process of cleanup and recovery at the World Trade Center site took eight months.