Join us in Cross→→Subscribe for new videos every day! https://www.youtube.com/user/TodayIFoundOut?sub_confirmation=1 Never run out of things to say at the water cooler with TodayIFoundOut! Brand new videos 7 days a week! More from TodayIFoundOut: Are Airplane Black Boxes Really Black? https://youtu.be/boavt6bpPxI In this video: It was a cool California November afternoon in 1947 when the HK-4 Hercules, also known as the Spruce Goose, finally flew. It was supposed to be a simple taxi test, nothing more than motoring through the water of Long Beach Harbor to show off its speed and test out the plane in open water. But having endured years of people mocking the project and himself for trying to build a plane so massive it had no hope of flying, Howard Hughes decided to take the opportunity to extend his middle finger at them all in the most poignant way he could. Want the text version?: [http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2018/06/when-the-spruce-goose-flew/ Sources: http://www.evergreenmuseum.org/the-spruce-goose https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/spruce-goose-flies https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2016/december/01/spruce-goose-dominates-oregon-museum https://www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entry.php?rec=59 https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/spruce-goose-museum/index.html http://www.americanheritage.com/content/spruce-goose-finds-nest http://articles.latimes.com/2001/sep/26/local/me-50015 https://books.google.com/books?id=FJ1ICgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Howard+Hughes+and+the+Spruce+Goose&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiJ6db09NPbAhUNrVkKHRV2DwIQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=Howard%20Hughes%20and%20the%20Spruce%20Goose&f=false http://www.boeing.com/history/products/h-4-flying-boat.page http://www.boeing.com/news/frontiers/archive/2007/november/i_history.pdf http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/u-boat-attacks-of-world-war-ii-6-months-of-secret-terror-in-the-atlantic/ https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-J-Ka