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J. Robert Oppenheimer
J. Robert Oppenheimer

The Oppenheimer security hearing, conducted by the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in 1954, explored the background, actions and associations of J. Robert Oppenheimer (pictured). He had headed the Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II, playing a key part in the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb. Doubts about Oppenheimer's loyalty dated back to the 1930s, when he was associated with Communist Party USA members, including his wife Katherine. He was involved in disputes over the types of nuclear weapons the country required, technical disputes over the feasibility of the hydrogen bomb, and personal conflict with AEC commissioner Lewis Strauss. The panel found that he was loyal and discreet, but did not recommend that he regain his security clearance. This ended his role in government, and he became an academic exile, cut off from his former career and the world he had helped to create. The findings were seen as fair by some and as an expression of McCarthyism by others. (Full article...)

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Commemoration of the Krasowo-Częstki massacre
Commemoration of the Krasowo-Częstki massacre

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Expo City in Dubai
Expo City in Dubai

On this day

December 17: Wright Brothers Day in the United States (1903); International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers

Memorial to victims killed during the 1970 Polish protests
Memorial to victims killed during the 1970 Polish protests
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First flight of the Wright Flyer

The Wright Flyer, also known as the Kitty Hawk, made the first sustained flight by a manned heavier-than-air powered and controlled aircraft – an airplane – on December 17, 1903. Invented and flown by the Wright brothers, it marked the beginning of the pioneer era of aviation. The Wright Flyer is a single-place biplane design with anhedral (drooping) wings, front double elevator and rear double rudder. It used a 12-horsepower (9-kilowatt) gasoline engine powering two pusher propellers. Employing "wing warping", it was relatively unstable and very difficult to fly. The Wright brothers flew it four times in a location south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The airplane flew 852 feet (260 m) on its fourth and final flight, but was damaged on landing, and minutes later was wrecked when powerful gusts blew it over. The aircraft never flew again but was shipped home and subsequently restored by Orville Wright. It was housed in the Science Museum in London from 1928 to 1948, and is now exhibited at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. This photograph, taken by John T. Daniels, a local member of the United States Life-Saving Service, shows the Wright Flyer seconds into its first flight in 1903.

Photograph credit: John T. Daniels; restored by Lise Broer

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