140: WWI Aviators: From the Lafayette Escadrille to the Red Baron and More
History That Doesn't Suck
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The History of Aircraft in 1914
In 1911, Lieutenant Giulio Gavadi lobs four grenades over a Turkish military camp in Libya. Three years after this accident, the world sees its first modern aerial attack. The Germans become the first to do it early in World War I with their Zeppelin's bomb on August 6, 1914. An aerial bombings on Paris soon follow, and when the Brits newly formed Royal Naval Air Service responds in kind, the Kaiser gives his blessing to bombs falling on London. But let's not rush ahead. Pilots are now taking pistols and carbeams on their reconnaissance missions. One intrepid French observer in a two-seater plane takes a hotchkiss machine gun with him
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