On 15 July 1916, William E Boeing and George Conrad Westervelt founded Pacific Aero Products Co. It became Boeing Airplane Co the next year, 12 days after the US entered the Great War. I have not found why Boeing decided that the use of his anglicised German name would boost the cause, but he was successful.
The Boeing we know today is the result of a US government-mandated shake-up of the industry in the 1930s. The corporation split into three, United Airlines, carrier, Boeing, manufacturer west of the Mississippi, and United Aircraft, manufacturer east of the Mississippi. The last, later United Technologies, has rebadged itself as Raytheon and remains with Boeing at the very top of the world’s defence system contractors.
On 15 July 1954, the Boeing 367-80, the Dash 80, had its maiden flight. It would evolve into the Boeing 707, the plane of the Jet Age. When the Dash 80 was shown off to industry executives in 1955, Boeing’s test pilot “Tex” Johnston performed two barrel rolls.
Johnston was called “Tex” because he often flew in cowboy boots and a Stetson hat and was a model for the Slim Pickens character in “Dr Strangelove”. He died of Alzheimer’s disease in 1998. The disease was identified by Alois Alzheimer in 1901 and colleague Emil Kraepelin gave the name in the eighth edition of his Textbook of Pyschiatry, published on 15 July 1910.
