Aviation

The distress signal "Mayday" comes from the French "M'aidez" (help me). In 1921, radio officer Frederick Mockford at London's Croydon Airport proposed it for aviation communication with Paris, as both English and French speakers could understand it.

NASA's AD-1 was an oblique wing aircraft — one wing pointing forward, the other backward. At supersonic speeds, swept wings reduce drag, but sweeping both shifts the center of lift. The oblique wing solved this by rotating both wings on a single pivot.