Today, the signal is casually tossed into texts during dating disasters or outfit emergencies, but its roots come from genuine life-or-death situations at sea. SOS entered official use in 1905 under ...

Conceived as a radio distress signal for airplane pilots and ship captains, “mayday” (the phonetic equivalent of “m’aidez,” the French word for “help me”) was officially adopted by the United States ...

A US Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker, commonly used for the aerial refuelling of military aircraft, transmitted a “7700” distress code indicating an in-flight emergency while operating over the Persian ...