I always felt a bit sorry for the Hawker Hurricane. It flew for the first time today in 1935, had 4 machine guns in each wing and a top speed of 325 mph at 20,000 feet. It was eclipsed by the Spitfire almost entirely because of the name. A Hurricane is a natural disaster; spitting fire is all about being unpleasant and deadly all in one.
In other news ...
Adolphe Sax was born today in 1814 in Belgium (oh, what a shame!) and of course invented the Saxophone. It was not until the birth of John Philip Sousa, exactly forty years later, that anybody wrote music which involved the playing of one.
