1978: NOAA announces gender-neutral hurricane naming system
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In January 1941 the War Department formed the all-black 99th Pursuit Squadron of the U.S. Army Air Corps (later the U.S. Army Air Forces), to be trained using single-engine planes at the segregated Tuskegee Army Air Field at Tuskegee, Alabama. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the black press, and others had been lobbying hard for the government to allow African Americans to become military pilots. But neither the NAACP nor the most-involved black newspapers approved the solution of creating separate black units; they believed that approach simply perpetuated segregation and discrimination. Nevertheless, largely at the behest of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a separate unit was created. The Tuskegee base opened on July 19 of that year and the first class graduated the following March. Lieut. Col. Benjamin Oliver Davis, Jr., became the squadron’s commander. Altogether, 992 pilots graduated from the Tuskegee Air Field courses, and they flew 1,578 missions and 15,533 sorties, destroyed 261 enemy aircraft, and won more than 850 medals.
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