Today In History:  18 July  [1915]   --  First American woman to loop the loop in an airplane.

Katherine Stinson becomes the first woman in the USA to loop the loop in an airplane. The stunt pilot performs the full rotation of her airplane over at Cicero Field in Chicago, and eventually went on to perform this feat some 500 times in her career without a single accident.

Stinson began exhibition flying and became known as the "Flying Schoolgirl" and "America's Sweetheart of the Air." She also became one of the first pilots to ever fly at night and she flew over Los Angeles with flares attached to the plane and spelled out "CAL", becoming the first nighttime sky-writer.

PHOTO: In another publicity in May 1916 stunt Stinson flew her plane in a race with Dario Resta, the 1916 Indianapolis 500 champion, in his car at Sheepshead Bay Speedway in the "earth and air match," Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, New York City.


Photo Attribution:  Public Domain  via Wikimedia.