Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American aerospace engineer, business magnate, film producer, investor, philanthropist and aircraft pilot.

Later in life, he became known for his eccentric behavior and reclusive lifestyle—oddities that were caused in part by his worsening obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), chronic pain from a near-fatal plane crash, and increasing deafness.

[5][6]: 163, 259  He spent the rest of the 1930s and much of the 1940s setting multiple world air speed records and building the Hughes H-1 Racer (1935) and the gigantic H-4 Hercules (the Spruce Goose, 1947), the largest flying boat in history with the longest wingspan of any aircraft from the time it was built until 2019.

[7] During his final years, Hughes extended his financial empire to include several major businesses in Las Vegas, such as real estate, hotels, casinos, and media outlets.

[12] A 1941 affidavit birth certificate of Hughes, signed by his aunt Annette Gano Lummis and by Estelle Boughton Sharp, states that he was born on December 24, 1905, in Harris County, Texas.

[28][6]: 69–72, 131–135 The H-1 Racer featured a number of design innovations: it had retractable landing gear (as Boeing Monomail had five years before), and all rivets and joints set flush into the body of the aircraft to reduce drag.

[46] The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF, successor to the USAAC) struggled to define a mission for the D-2, which lacked both the maneuverability of a fighter and the payload of a bomber, and was highly skeptical of the extensive use of plywood; however, the project was kept alive by high-level intervention from General Henry H.

[50] In the spring of 1943 Hughes spent nearly a month in Las Vegas, test-flying his Sikorsky S-43 amphibious aircraft, practicing touch-and-go landings on Lake Mead in preparation for flying the H-4 Hercules.

[6]: 186 Acting on a recommendation of the president's son, Colonel Elliott Roosevelt, who had become friends with Hughes, in September 1943 General Arnold issued a directive to order 100 of a reconnaissance development of the D-2, known as the F-11 (XF-11 in prototype form).

The XF-11 emerged in 1946 as an all-metal, twin-boom, three-seat reconnaissance aircraft, substantially larger than the D-2 and powered by two Pratt & Whitney R-4360-31 engines, each driving a set of contra-rotating propellers.

[58][59] When the XF-11 finally came to a halt after destroying three houses, the fuel tanks exploded, setting fire to the aircraft and a nearby home at 808 North Whittier Drive owned by Charles E.

[60] Hughes managed to pull himself out of the flaming wreckage but lay beside the aircraft until he was rescued by U.S. Marine Corps Master Sergeant William L. Durkin, who happened to be in the area visiting friends.

He called in plant engineers to design a customized bed, equipped with hot and cold running water, built in six sections, and operated by 30 electric motors, with push-button adjustments.

[80] During World War II Hughes leveraged political connections in Washington to obtain rights for TWA to serve Europe, making it the only U.S. carrier with a combination of domestic and transatlantic routes.

[83] As Hughes' mental state worsened, he ordered various tactics to delay payments to Boeing and Convair; his behavior led TWA's banks to insist that he be removed from management as a condition for further financing.

However, the airline's lucrative route authority between major northeastern cities and Miami was terminated by a CAB decision around the time of the acquisition, and Hughes sold control of the company to a trustee in 1964.

[95][96][97][98] The indictment, made by U.S. Attorney DeVoe Heaton, accused the group of conspiring to drive down the stock price of Air West in order to pressure company directors to sell to Hughes.

[109] In 1972, during the Cold War era, Hughes was approached by the CIA through his longtime partner, David Charnay, to help secretly recover the Soviet submarine K-129, which had sunk near Hawaii four years earlier.

[110] Hughes' involvement provided the CIA with a plausible cover story, conducting expensive civilian marine research at extreme depths and the mining of undersea manganese nodules.

[119] In 1933, Hughes made a purchase of a luxury steam yacht named the Rover, which was previously owned by Scottish shipping magnate James Mackay, 1st Earl of Inchcape.

Hughes was booked on suspicion of negligent homicide and held overnight in jail until his attorney, Neil S. McCarthy, obtained a writ of habeas corpus for his release pending a coroner's inquest.

"[6]: 58–62, 182–183 While directing The Outlaw, Hughes became fixated on a small flaw in one of Jane Russell's blouses, claiming that the fabric bunched up along a seam and gave the appearance of two nipples on each breast.

He wrote in a memo to an aide, "I like to think of Las Vegas in terms of a well-dressed man in a dinner jacket and a beautifully jeweled and furred female getting out of an expensive car.

A small panel, unofficially dubbed the "Mormon Mafia" for the many Latter-day Saints on the committee, was led by Frank William Gay and originally served as Hughes' "secret police" headquartered at 7000 Romaine, Hollywood.

Over the next two decades, however, this group oversaw and controlled considerable business holdings,[161][162] with the CIA anointing Gay while awarding a contract to the Hughes corporation to acquire sensitive information on a sunken Russian submarine.

His hair, beard, fingernails, and toenails were long—his tall 6 ft 4 in (193 cm) frame now weighed barely 90 pounds (41 kg), and the FBI had to use fingerprints to conclusively identify the body.

[178] In an eighteen-month study investigating Hughes' drug abuse for the estate, it was found that "someone administered a deadly injection of the painkiller to this comatose man ... obviously needlessly and almost certainly fatal".

A notable allegation came from retired Major General Mark Musick, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, who claimed Hughes went on to live under an assumed identity, dying on November 15, 2001, in Troy, Alabama.

[181][182] Approximately three weeks after Hughes' death, a handwritten will was found on the desk of an official of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah.

A further $156 million was endowed to a gas station owner, Melvin Dummar, who told reporters that in 1967, he found a disheveled and dirty man lying along U.S. Route 95, just 150 miles (240 km) north of Las Vegas.