Howard Hughes Fact File: Lifespan: 1905 - 1976 *** Full Name: Howard Robard Hughes, Jr.*** Occupation: American Business Tycoon, Investor, Aviator, Aerospace Engineer, Inventor, Filmmaker and Philanthropist.*** Date of Birth: He was born on December 24th 1905 *** Place of Birth: He was born in Humble, Texas, United States *** Family background: His father was Howard Robard Hughes, Sr. who had been a successful businessman and inventor and his mother was Allene Stone Gano. *** Early life and childhood: He grew up in Texas *** Education: He began his education at The Thacher School and also attended California Institute of Technology and Rice University

Howard Hughes Fact 1: He was born during the beginning of the 20th century and he would see massive changes in science, medicine and innovations.

Howard Hughes Fact 2: After the death of his parents he became an emancipated minor and inherited his father’s tool company Hughes Tool Company which had been founded in 1909.

Howard Hughes Fact 3: He had been interested in aviation since a young boy and in 1933 he established the Hughes Aircraft Company in Glendale, California.

Howard Hughes Fact 4: His first big venture in filmmaking and his first two successful films were Everybody’s Acting and Two Arabian Knights

Howard Hughes Fact 5: During the 1940’s and 1950’s he owned the RKO companies.

Howard Hughes Fact 6: He became more hands on within his aviation interests in 1934 when he won the All-American Air Meet Trophy in Miami having remodeled a US Army Boeing pursuit plane into a racer.

Howard Hughes Fact 7: He set a new land speed record in 1935 in a car he designed himself.

Howard Hughes Fact 8: In 1938 he flew around the world with a crew of four in a twin engine Lockheed 14 in three days, nineteen hours and twenty eight minutes.

Howard Hughes Fact 9: The following year he bought stock in what would become Trans World Airlines. Later that year he started developing designs for the military.

Howard Hughes Fact 10: Failed ventures include the production of three flying boats for a government contract that was cancelled as well as other contracts for aircraft.

Howard Hughes Fact 11: Often choosing to test flight his own new aircraft, on one such occasion the engines of his XF-11 malfunctioned and he crashed in Beverley Hills. He suffered catastrophic injuries and was not supposed to survive but not only did he survive but made an almost full recovery. The only lasting effect was pain for which he became addicted to codeine.

Howard Hughes Fact 12: He still maintained his interest in the movie industry and between ventures would revisit his studios periodically.

Howard Hughes Fact 13: Always concerned with his health, he was an obsessive compulsive person always highly concerned with diseases and germs.

Howard Hughes Fact 14: He decided he wanted to leave a legacy that would continue to grow long after he was gone and that would inherit his every increasing wealth.

Howard Hughes Fact 15: It was in 1953 that he launched the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Florida. The Institute is currently located in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Howard Hughes Fact 16: He married several times and each time his marriages failed. He never had any children.

Howard Hughes Fact 17: In 1958, his excessive lifestyle caught up with him and he had a nervous collapse.

Howard Hughes Fact 18: He was often in dispute with the IRS over his taxes. He would eventually leave the country to avoid further issues.

Howard Hughes Fact 19: He would move from California to Nevada. From Nevada he decided to settle in the Bahamas. It was here he really became totally reclusive. He then made several more moves across the world from Nicaragua to Vancouver, on to London, back to the Bahamas and finally settled in Acapulco, Mexico.

Howard Hughes Fact 20: His last years were spent living the life of someone with nothing. He refused medical care, he refused to be cared for by anyone, he didn’t eat properly, he looked emaciated and weighed ninety four pounds at his death.

Howard Hughes Fact 21: Falling unconscious in his hotel room he was being transported to Houston on April 5th 1976 when in mid-flight he died. The official records state he died of kidney failure. He was laid to rest in Glenwood Cemetery in Houston, Texas.

Influence & Legacy: He was a man with many interests and the fortune to indulge them but more often importantly he was not self-important, his ventures he wanted to share with the world, whether it involved making movies to please his audiences, his work in aviation put millions upon millions of dollars into the industry and certainly his greatest achievement was with the founding of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Over the ensuring decades it has become the largest privately funded institution for medical and biological research and the main bulk of his fortune would go into this facility upon his death.

Important Events of the 20th century and during the life of Howard Hughes include: Sighting of Halley’s Comet, the sinking of the Titanic, World War I, Russian Revolution, J Edgar Hoover appointed Director of the FBI, The Great Depression, World War II and Japan attach Pearl Harbour.

List of Famous Awards:
*** Harmony Trophy (1936 and 1938) *** Collier Trophy (1938) *** Congressional Gold Medal (1939) *** Octave Chanute Award (1940) *** National Aviation Hall of Fame (1973) *** Transcontinental airspeed record from Los Angeles to Newark New Jersey (1937) *** Round the world airspeed record (1938) ***