Home / Birthday profiles / Richard T. Whitcomb
Portrait of Richard T. Whitcomb

Birthday profile

Richard T. Whitcomb

Richard T. Whitcomb, American aeronautical engineer (died 2009)

Find birthday twinsOpen interactive profile
Born
February 21, 1921
Died
October 13, 2009
Zodiac sign
Pisces
Birth year
1921

About Richard T. Whitcomb

Richard Travis Whitcomb was an American aeronautical engineer who was noted for his contributions to the science of aerodynamics. For his insight, Whitcomb won the Collier Trophy in 1954. For his contribution, NASA awarded Whitcomb a $25,000 prize, and he received the 1974 Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy from the National Aeronautic Association. To achieve reduced drag in the transonic phase, Whitcomb realized that the wing's pressure distribution must be modified to delay and weaken the shock wave created on the upper surface where the high-velocity flow decelerated to subsonic.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Richard T. Whitcomb timeline

  1. For his insight, Whitcomb won the Collier Trophy in 1954.
  2. For his contribution, NASA awarded Whitcomb a $25,000 prize, and he received the 1974 Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy from the National Aeronautic Association.

The world when Richard T. Whitcomb was born

Richard T. Whitcomb was born in 1921. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1921

  • #1 song"My Man" – Fanny Brice
  • Top movieThe Kid (Charlie Chaplin)
  • Best-selling bookMain Street – Sinclair Lewis

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentJack Dempsey vs Georges Carpentier — first million-dollar gate
  • Top headlineWarren G. Harding inaugurated as 29th President
  • Technology milestoneAlbert Einstein wins the Nobel Prize in Physics
  • Defining fadOuija boards
  • Notable inventionLie detector (polygraph)
  • World population1.88 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderWarren G. Harding
  • Sports championNew York Giants (World Series)
  • U.S. population108.5M

1921 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Richard T. Whitcomb's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19212026
Gas$0.26$3.45/gal
Average home$5,500$435,000
Average income$3,010$67,500
Movie ticket$0.15$11.95
Postage stamp$0.02$0.73
Population108.5M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.