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19421776 Club

Grumman's new carrier fighter lifts off; the XF6F-1 is built to beat the Zero

The Hellcat prototype takes its first flight today, designed around combat reports from Pacific pilots who found the F4F Wildcat outmatched.

By mid-1942, American naval aviators in the Pacific were flying a plane that couldn't match the Mitsubishi Zero — and they knew it. The F4F Wildcat was brave enough work, but combat reports from pilots like Butch O'Hare made the problem plain. On June 26, 1942, Grumman's answer lifted off for the first time: the XF6F-1 prototype, designed from the start to be heavier, faster, tougher, and built around the lessons of a war already two years old. The Navy had found its fighter…

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More from June 26
1945

50 nations sign the United Nations Charter in San Francisco

China signs first, as the nation that bore Axis aggression longest; delegates from all 50 Allied powers file through the Herbst Theatre to add their names.
1948

Clay orders supply flights into Tempelhof; the question now is whether the air can feed two million

Stalin sealed every land route into West Berlin days ago, betting the Allies would negotiate their way out rather than try to sustain a city from the sky.
2015

Supreme Court rules 5-4: every state must license and recognize same-sex marriage

Kennedy's majority finds the Fourteenth Amendment settles the question; the ruling consolidates six cases from four states and reaches all 50 states and U.S. territories.
17401776 Club
Spanish regulars, free black militia, and Seminole warriors hit the 170-man British garrison two hours before it stirred, wrecking Oglethorpe's drive on St. Augustine.
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Read the full June 26 edition →Everything that happened on June 26 →
More from The World Wars
1942

Navy pilot spots a downed Zero on Akutan Island; the U.S. has its first intact enemy fighter

Bill Thies, flying a PBY, finds Petty Officer Koga's crashed Zero upside down in the mud, a month after it went down during the Dutch Harbor attack.
1943

Roosevelt signs a monument into existence for Carver; no Black American has been honored this way before

The site near Diamond, Missouri, where Carver was born into slavery, becomes the first national monument built to honor a private citizen.
1945

The gadget detonates; 21,000 tons of TNT in an instant above the Jornada del Muerto

A plutonium device atop a 100-foot tower vaporizes the steel at 5:29 a.m., lighting the sky as far as Amarillo and melting desert sand to green glass.
1945

Churchill, Stalin, and Truman convene at Cecilienhof; a new Europe is on the table

Three months into his presidency, Truman sits down with allies to settle Germany's occupation zones, Poland's government, and where the Reich's eastern border will now fall.
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