June 07, 1912

At College Park, Md., Capt. Charles deForest Chandler becomes the first aviator to fire a machine gun from the air. He shoots a Lewis low-recoil machine gun at the ground while flying as Lt. Thomas DeWitt Milling’s passenger in the Wright Model B aircraft. The results are so promising that the aviators order 10 additional guns, but the Army Ordnance Department cannot supply them, as the Lewis gun had not yet been accepted for Army use.