The Bell X-1, is a rocket engine–powered aircraft, designated as the XS-1, was a joint National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics–U. S. Army Air Forces–U. S. Air Force supersonic research project built by Bell Aircraft. Conceived during 1944 and designed and built in 1945, it achieved a speed of nearly 1,000 miles per hour in 1948. A derivative of this same design, the Bell X-1A, having greater fuel capacity and hence longer rocket burning time, exceeded 1,600 miles per hour in 1954; the X-1, piloted by Chuck Yeager, was the first crewed airplane to exceed the speed of sound in level flight and was the first of the X-planes, a series of American experimental rocket planes designed for testing new technologies. In 1942, the United Kingdom's Ministry of Aviation began a top secret project with Miles Aircraft to develop the world's first aircraft capable of breaking the sound barrier; the project resulted in the development of the prototype turbojet-powered Miles M.52, designed to reach 1,000 miles per hour in level flight, to climb to an altitude of 36,000 ft in 1 min 30 sec.

By 1944, design of the M.52 was 90% complete and Miles was told to go ahead with the construction of three prototypes. That year, the Air Ministry signed an agreement with the United States to exchange high-speed research and data. Miles' Chief Aerodynamicist Dennis Bancroft stated that Bell Aircraft personnel visited Miles in 1944, were given access to the drawings and research on the M.52, but the U. S. reneged on the agreement and no data was forthcoming in return. Unknown to Miles, Bell had started construction of a rocket-powered supersonic design of their own, with a conventional horizontal tail. Bell was battling the problem of pitch control due to "blanking" the elevators. A variable-incidence tail appeared to be the most promising solution; the XS-1 was first discussed in December 1944. Early specifications for the aircraft were for a piloted supersonic vehicle that could fly at 800 miles per hour at 35,000 feet for two to five minutes. On 16 March 1945, the U. S. Army Air Forces Flight Test Division and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics contracted with the Bell Aircraft Company to build three XS-1 aircraft to obtain flight data on conditions in the transonic speed range.

The aircraft's designers built a rocket plane after considering alternatives. Turbojets could not achieve the required performance at high altitude. An aircraft with both turbojet and rocket engines would be too complex; the X-1 was, in principle, a "bullet with wings", its shape resembling a Browning.50-caliber machine gun bullet, known to be stable in supersonic flight. The shape was followed to the extent of seating its pilot behind a sloped, framed window inside a confined cockpit in the nose, with no ejection seat. Swept wings were not used; as the design might lead to a fighter the XS-1 was intended to take off from the ground, but the end of the war made the B-29 Superfortress available to carry it into the air. After the rocket plane experienced compressibility problems during 1947, it was modified with a variable-incidence tailplane following technology transfer with the United Kingdom. Following conversion of the X-1's horizontal tail to all-moving, test pilot Chuck Yeager verified it experimentally, all subsequent supersonic aircraft would either have an all-moving tailplane or be "tailless" delta winged types.

The rocket engine was a four-chamber design built by Reaction Motors Inc. one of the first companies to build liquid-propellant rocket engines in the U. S. After considering hydrogen peroxide and aniline, nitromethane as fuels, the rocket burned ethyl alcohol diluted with water with a liquid oxygen oxidizer, its four chambers could be individually turned on and off, so thrust could be changed in 1,500 lbf increments. The fuel and oxygen tanks for the first two X-1 engines were pressurized with nitrogen, reducing flight time by about ​1 1⁄2 minutes and increasing landing weight by 2,000 pounds, but the rest used gas-driven turbopumps, increasing the chamber pressure and thrust while making the engine lighter. Bell Aircraft chief test pilot Jack Woolams became the first person to fly the XS-1, he made a glide-flight over Pinecastle Army Airfield, in Florida, on 25 January 1946. Woolams completed nine more glide-flights over Pinecastle, with the B-29 dropping the aircraft at 29,000 feet and the XS-1 landing 12 minutes at about 110 miles per hour.

In March 1946 the #1 rocket plane was returned to Bell Aircraft in Buffalo, New York for modifications to prepare for the powered flight tests. Four more glide tests occurred at Muroc Army Air Field near Palmdale, flooded during the Florida tests, before the first powered test on 9 December 1946. Two chambers were ignited, but the aircraft accelerated so that one chamber was turned off until reignition at 35,000 feet, reaching Mach 0.795. After the chambers were turned off the aircraft descended to 15,000 feet, where all four chambers were tested. After Woolams' death on 30 August 1946, Chalmers "Slick" Goodlin was the primary Bell Aircraft test pilot for the X-1-1, he made 26 successful flights in both X-1s from September 1946 through June 1947. The Army Air Forces was unhappy with the cautious pace of flight envelope expansion and Bell Aircraft's flight test contract for airplane #46-062 was term

West Virginia Children's Home is a national historic district located at Elkins, Randolph County, West Virginia. It encompasses two contributing structures; the original Children's Home building was built in 1909, with a main section and rear ell in the Colonial Revival style. An upper story to the ell was added by 1918, an addition was built in 1935; the front facade features a portico with Corinthian order columns. The other contributing building is a two-story residence built in 1920; the contributing structures are a brick storage cellar. It served as the statewide institution for the housing and placement of orphaned and dependent children from 1911 until 1977, it was subsequently occupied by a residential treatment facility for disturbed teenagers. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994

Robert Joseph Hansen is a former professional first baseman. Hansen was drafted in the twenty-first round of the 1969 Major League Baseball Draft by the Seattle Pilots, he would remain in the organization through its move to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to become the Milwaukee Brewers. During his time with the Brewers, he played at the Major League level in 1974 and 1976. Hansen played at the collegiate level at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. From 1966-69, he played four seasons of collegiate summer baseball in the Cape Cod Baseball League, three with the Cotuit Kettleers, a final season with the Orleans Cardinals. A three-time CCBL all-star, Hansen was inducted into the CCBL hall of fame in 2008. Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or Baseball-Reference, or Retrosheet, or Pura Pelota