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Dick Cresswell (27 July 1920 – 12 December 2006) was an officer and pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). Born in Tasmania, he joined the RAAF in July 1938. He commanded No. 77 (Fighter) Squadron from April 1942 to August 1943, in Australia's North Western Area Campaign, against Japanese raiders. He claimed the squadron's first victory—the first by an Australian over the mainland—in November 1942. He commanded No. 81 (Fighter) Wing from May 1944 to March 1945, and simultaneously No. 77 Squadron between September and December 1944. In September 1950, during the Korean War, he took command of No. 77 Squadron for the third time. He oversaw its conversion to Gloster Meteors, becoming the first RAAF commander of a jet squadron in war, and earned the Commonwealth and US Distinguished Flying Crosses. Cresswell resigned from the RAAF in 1957, and flew with Bobby Gibbes's Sepik Airways in New Guinea before joining de Havilland Australia in 1959. He retired in 1974. (Full article...)

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From today's featured article

... that the Big Stone County Museum preserves a historic octagonal one-room schoolhouse (pictured)?
... that operatic tenor Klaus König, who performed for more than 30 years, also worked as a house painter?
... that Copford Place has been used as a prisoner of war camp and a retirement home for "gentlefolk"?
... that Kamla Jaan, a hijra and mayor, was removed from office because the electoral rolls listed her as male?
... that the author of the manga series Momo was inspired by the concept of girls wanting the world to be destroyed rather than face their problems?
... that photographer Denis Cameron covered the Lebanese Civil War, the Iranian Revolution, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the Gulf War?
... that Walmart referred to a store at Muscatine Mall as their "Yankee store" because it was then their northernmost?
... that George Mearns Savery was a pioneer of women's education in England?
... that there was an attempt to make a ten-year-old English prince the king of Sicily?

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In the news

Armed clashes erupt in the Cambodia–Thailand border conflict.
Ozzy Osbourne (pictured), the lead singer of Black Sabbath, dies at the age of 76.
A fighter jet crashes into a college in Dhaka, Bangladesh, killing more than 30 people.
In golf, Scottie Scheffler wins the Open Championship.
A tourist boat capsizes during a thunderstorm in Hạ Long Bay, Vietnam, leaving at least 36 people dead.

Ongoing: Gaza war · Russian invasion of Ukraine (timeline) · Sudanese civil war (timeline)

Recent deaths: Julian LeFay · Arnold Palacios · Chuck Mangione · Hulk Hogan · Roger Norrington · Edwin Feulner · Des van Jaarsveldt

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On this day

July 27

Colonial_Pipeline_System — Colonial Pipeline system map in 2012

1689 – First Jacobite rising: Scottish and Irish Jacobites defeated Williamite forces at Killiecrankie, Scotland.
1955 – The Austrian State Treaty came into effect, ending the Allied occupation of Austria, although the country was not free of Allied troops until October.
1965 – Mattachine Midwest, a gay rights organization in Chicago, held its first meeting.
2007 – While covering a police pursuit in Phoenix, Arizona, two news helicopters collided in mid-air, killing both crews.
2020 – A major oil spill from the Colonial Pipeline was discovered in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina (system map pictured).

Joe Tinker (b. 1880; d. 1948) · Carlos Vila Nova (b. 1959) · Piet de Jong (d. 2016) · Edna O'Brien (d. 2024)

More anniversaries: July 26 · July 27 · July 28

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