June 14

On the 14th in 1919, John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, climbed in to the cockpit of a modified Vickers Vimy twin-engine bomber and lifted off from an airfield in St. John's, Newfoundland to begin their journey to Clifden, Ireland. If successful, theirs would be the first nonstop transatlantic flight. They made it, though they crash-landed in a bog in Clifden, Ireland, on June 15.
Alcock was the pilot of the flight. He died on December 18, 1919 when he crashed while delivering the new Vickers Viking amphibious airplane to the Paris air show. Brown lived until October 4, 1948.