This lovely, short video produced at Utah Valley University hits many of the highlights of the history of aviation, from Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches of flying machines to modern day space travel.

Thanks to ThisDayin History.com for the reminder that on this day, February 7, back in 1964, Pan Am Yankee Clipper flight 101 from London Heathrow landed at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport with its special cargo of Beatles.

According to History.com:

It was the first visit to the United States by the Beatles, a British rock-and-roll quartet that had just scored its first No. 1 U.S. hit six days before with “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” At Kennedy, the “Fab Four”–dressed in mod suits and sporting their trademark pudding bowl haircuts–were greeted by 3,000 screaming fans who caused a near riot when the boys stepped off their plane and onto American soil.

Here’s a great video using clips from that day:

Two days after their arrival at JFK, the Beatles made their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Here’s what’s coming up:

February 10: Charles Marshall “The Jazz Ambassador”

February 17: The Sounds of Essence

February 24: Satin Finish Band

While you’re at ATL, be sure to take a moment to visit the airport’s exhibit honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Located on Concourse E, the exhibit features photographs and artifacts, including the suit King wore when he met with President Lyndon Johnson, a radio he used to listen to news reports while on freedom walks and the robe he wore to accept the Nobel Peace Prize.

Aviator goggles 1920s–1930s metal, glass, fur, fabric, elastic. Courtesy of San Diego Air & Space Museum

Early airplanes had open cockpits and aviators needed special equipment and protective gear in order to do their jobs.

Examples of some of those items are now on exhibit at the San Francisco International Airport. Flight Gear: Pilot Equipment from the Open-Cockpit Era features more than forty examples of flight suits, jackets, helmets, goggles and other accessories dating from the 1910s to the 1940s. Also on exhibit are period photographs, advertising, and catalog illustrations featuring the artifacts displayed.

A. G. Spalding & Bros. "Aviators' Equipment" catalogue one-piece flying suits illustration 1930 ink on paper SFO Museum

Flight Gear: Pilot Equipment from the Open-Cockpit Era is on view through August 1, 2012 in the San Francisco Airport Commission Aviation Library and Louis A. Turpen Aviation Museum in the International Terminal Departures Level adjacent to the Boarding Area ‘A’ entrance.  Admission is free. Hours: 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sunday through Friday.

The Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport’s Terminal 1- Lindbergh turns 50 this month and, to celebrate, there are special events, shopping discounts and a call for travelers to share memories on the MSP Facebook page.

Here are few highlights:

“A marriage proposal in the rotunda at the F and G concourses. The guy got down on one knee right in the middle of traffic. The couple told us (Travelers assistance) that they had meet in the MSP Airport and that is where he wanted to propose. She said yes…..”

“I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, but moved up here in the early 70′s when I was in college. I recall at that time that the Lindbergh Terminal had pay toilets. $.10 to use a stall! …”

“I remember when they filmed Airport there- mom & dad brought me to the airport to watch them film the scene where Van Heflin buys the insurance at the little insurance kiosk, which was located in the upper level where the shops are all located now (If I recall correctly). Can’t watch the movie without recognizing ‘my’ airport.”

MSP has also posted some photos from its archive. My favorite is this one of the Beatles arriving at the airport in 1965.

And, if you read through the list of 50 ‘fun facts’ about MSP’s Terminal 1 – Lindbergh, you’ll learn that there was once both a drugstore and a children’s nursery in the Ticketing Lobby, that the first baggage carousels were installed in 1970 and that the pay toilets weren’t removed until the mid-1970s.

That list included Leila’s Hair Museum in Independence, Mo., the Museum of Bad Art in Dedham, Ma., and the Plumbing Museum in Watertown, Ma.  The Cockroach Hall of Fame, in Plano, Tx. was also on that list. It’s where more than two dozen costumed and preserved award-winning cockroaches are on display, including the bejeweled, piano-playing Liberoachi.

Liberoachi plays on forever at the Cockroach Hall of Fame

Here are few more unusual museums from the story:

If this museum could talk, it would slur its words.

In Bardstown, Ky., the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History traces American whiskey history back to the 1700s with displays of liquor memorabilia ranging from moonshine stills and antique bottles to Abraham Lincoln’s liquor license and the hatchet used by temperance crusader Carrie Nation.

Vacuum or Lamp? Both!

They suck — and that’s why several dozen antique, vintage and just plain wacky suction-producing cleaning devices are displayed at the Vacuum Museum inside Stark’s Vacuums in Portland, Ore. Some of the most unusual models offered time-saving conveniences. Our favorites: vacuum cleaners that double as hair dryers, neck vibrators, lamps or footstools, for those quick clean-ups in the den.

Giant shoes: not just for clowns

Compact and coin-operated, the Giant Shoe Museum displays about 20 giant shoes dating from the 1890s to the 1950s. A feature of Old Seattle Paperworks in the Pike Place Market in Seattle, the oversized footwear includes The Colossus, a 5-foot-long black leather wingtip from the 1920s, and a shoe worn by Robert Wadlow, once the world’s tallest man.

Want to see more unusual museums? See the Museum Monday post here on StuckatTheAirport.com and check out the full story with 14 Bizarre Museums – on Bing Travel.

As in this 1871 photo of a balloon ascending over Ferndale, CA, some of the earliest attempts to conquer space were in free floating hot-air balloons. Next came heavier than air machines and, ultimately, rocket ships that can elude gravity and soar into space. Lucky for us photographers and artists were often on hand to document and imagine these journeys.

In his now classic aviation book, Birdflight as the basis for aviation, published in 1889, Otto Lilienthal outlined his theories on flying based on his study of bird wing structure and the aerodynamics of bird flight. He built and famously experimented with a series of 18 bird-inspired gliders and served as an inspiration for Wright Brothers, who studied his gliding techniques.

Stunt pilot Art Smith became well known for aerobatic flying and for using flares to do skywriting at night, a talent he exhibited on the closing night of San Francisco’s Pan Pacific International Exposition in 1915. Smith later went on to work for the US post office as one the first air mail pilots.

Famed aviator Charles Lindbergh stands in front of his airplane, the Spirit of St. Louis, shortly after completing the first solo, non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean in May, 1927. The plane is now in Washington, D.C. at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum.

In 1934, the Griffith Park Observatory was getting ready to open in Los Angeles. This photograph shows the artist, Roger Haywood, sculpting a section of an exact replica of the moon, reduced to 38 feet.

I’ll post more photos from the Skydreamers exhibition tomorrow, but if you want to start planning a trip to Los Angeles to see the full show, you have until September 4, 2011 to see it at the Autry National Center.

Three Stewardess near Jet Engine; possibly PanAm (from the Archives of the Museum of Flight; Copyright The Museum of Flight Collection.)

A United Airlines Stewardess with food service in the Galley, circa late 1940′s early 1950′s. Copyright The Museum of Flight Collection

“Fashion designer, Oleg Cassini created a futuristic look for the flight attendants of Air West during the carrier’s brief existence prior to its purchase by Howard Hughes. The basic uniform consisted of a textured polyester dress and a jacket with an unconventional side-buttoning configuration. The pieces came in a selection of bright, solid colors inspired by the natural colors found at Air West’s destinations, including fern green, Pacific blue and canyon red.”  Copyright Delta Airlines.

This week our souvenirs come from the souvenir shop at the Astronaut Ellison S. Onizuka Space Center, which is located right next to the charming, open-air terminals at Kona International Airport.

The center is part museum/part education center and is dedicated to the memory of Ellison Onizuka, who was Hawaii’s first astronaut and one of the crewmembers who perished aboard the Challenger Mission on January 28, 1986.

The Onizuka Space Center is jam-packed with hands-on activities that explain space and space concepts as well as a wide variety of displays that include a piece of a moon rock, an Apollo 13 space suit and memorabilia that includes the freeze-dried macadamia nuts and Kona coffee NASA developed for Ellison Onizuka so that the Hawaiian astronaut would feel at home in space.

The museum is just a 30-second walk from the main part of Kona International Airport and is a much better way for you and your kids to spend your time than sitting out in the sun in airport’s post-security area.

Even if you don’t want to explore the space center’s exhibits, consider stopping in to check out the gift shop. It’s has a carefully selected assortment of space-related books, games and space-related souvenirs.

That’s where I picked up these cool, inexpensive and easy-to-carry fashion accessories: glow-in-the dark, Space Shaped Rubber Bands.

If you find a great souvenir while you’re stuck at the airport, please snap a photo and send it along.

The favorite souvenirs here at StuckatTheAirport.com are inexpensive (around $10), “of” the city or region and ideally, a bit offbeat. And if your souvenir is featured on Souvenir Sunday, you’ll receive a special airport or airline-related souvenir.

During a few jam-packed days in Indianapolis this week, I got a crash-course in racing from Donald Davidson, the historian at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum

The collection of winning cars on display in the museum is quite thrilling and as part of this year’s centennial celebration of the Indianapolis 500, fans are being asked to help choose the greatest 33 drivers of the race’s first 100 years.

While in town, I also got schooled on mead – which is wine made from honey – during a fun tasting with Brett Canaday who, with his wife Tia Agnew, operates New Day Meadery, Indiana’s first and only meadery. (If you go, be sure to taste the mead made from blueberries)

And, of course, I spent a few hours poking around Indianapolis International Airport in search of souvenirs to share with you on Souvenir Sunday, a day that celebrates the fun, inexpensive and local items for sale at airports.

IND doesn’t disappoint.

After I tore myself away from Just Pop In, a store that sells  popcorn with unusual flavors,

I found some fun Indy 500 race souvenirs

Do you shop for fun stuff when you’re stuck at the airport?  If you find something that’s inexpensive (around $10), “of” the city or region and, ideally, a bit offbeat, please snap a photo and send it along.

If your souvenir is featured on Souvenir Sunday here at StuckatTheAirport.com, I’ll send you a special airport souvenir.