History
The airport was built and commissioned in 1940 as RAF Grimsetter for the defence of the Scapa Flow naval base. In 1943 the Royal Naval Air Service took over, as RNAS Kirkwall then HMS Robin. Control passed in 1948 to the Ministry of Civil Aviation and in 1986 to Highlands and Islands Airports.
Read more about this topic: Kirkwall Airport
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“He wrote in prison, not a History of the World, like Raleigh, but an American book which I think will live longer than that. I do not know of such words, uttered under such circumstances, and so copiously withal, in Roman or English or any history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set in. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.”
—Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)