born Dec. 24, 1905, Houston, Texas, U.S.
died April 5, 1976, in an airplane over southern Texas
U.S. manufacturer, aviator, and movie producer.
He left college at age 17 to take control of his late father's Hughes Tool Company, which owned the patent to an oil-drilling tool; the company would form the future basis for Hughes's vast fortune. In the early 1930s he founded Hughes Aircraft Company. In 1935 he set a speed record of 352 mph (567 km/hr) in a plane he designed. In 1938 he flew around the world in a record 91 hours. In 1947 he built and piloted the only flight of a wooden eight-engine flying boat unflatteringly nicknamed "the Spruce Goose." In the 1930s he produced several movies in Hollywood, and he owned RKO Pictures in the early 1950s. He held controlling stock in Trans World Airlines but was forced to sell it in 1966 following legal action. After about 1950 he became a famously eccentric recluse, and after his death his forged memoirs and his several wills became a source of scandal.