In 1935, Hugo Junkers, an aviation pioneer and pacifist who introduced revolutionary changes to aircraft design in 1915, died after losing control of his company and patents to the National Socialist regime in Germany.

In 1936, the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York elected its first members, Ty Cobb, Christy Matthewson , Walter Johnson, Babe Ruth, and Honus Wagner.

In 1942, Canadian Pacific Airways was formed when Arrow Airways and Canadian Airways merged.

In 1948, aviation pioneer Orville Wright died at the age of 76 after a second heart attack.  He was born in the horse-and-buggy era and lived to see the dawn of supersonic flight.  His brother Wilbur had died from typhoid fever in 1912 at the age of 46.

Mikhail Mil (pictured in a commemorative stamp), the Russian aerospace engineer responsible for numerous Soviet helicopters carrying his name, died in 1970 at age 60 in Moscow.

In 1981, Donald Douglas, who founded the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1921, died at the age of 88.  The company merged with McDonnell Aircraft in 1967 and that entity merged with rival Boeing in 1997.

Finally, in 2006, United Airlines emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.  In 2010, United merged with Continental Airlines to form United-Continental Holdings.   Continental had been in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection twice, one in the 1980s and once in the 1990s.

The city is officially known as the Tokyo Metropolis and is the seat of the Japanese government and the home of the Imperial Family and Imperial Palace.

The city’s pace can indeed be overwhelming because the prefecture’s total population exceeds 13 million, making Tokyo the world’s most populous metropolitan area, with 35 million people.  More Fortune Global 500 companies (47) are headquartered here than in any other city.

To see both the traditional and twenty-first century Tokyo in a few days is easy.  Start with a visit to the Hamarikyu Gardens, in Chūō, Tokyo.  This park was the site of a Shogun Tokugawa family villa and opened to the public in 1946.  It may be one of the calmest places in the city, and the teashop in the middle of the pond offers to visitors a Japanese-style tea ceremony.

The park is near Shiodome, one of the most modern, skyscraper-filled parts of the city.  Here you’ll find office towers and the new Conrad Hotel Tokyo atop the Tokyo Shiodome tower.

The Conrad isn’t the only hotel perched on the top of a skyscraper.  The Park Hyatt Tokyo opened in 1994 atop the Shinjuku Park Tower in Tokyo’s Shinjuku neighborhood.

Tokyo’s sleek Roppongi Hills complex, which opened in 2003 in the Roppongi district of Minato, Tokyo, includes the Mori Art Museum, movie theaters, more than 200 restaurants and shops, the 54-story Mori Tower (with an observation deck on the 52nd floor), luxury residences, offices, and the Grand Hyatt Tokyo.

WHAT TO DO

The Ginza district, also in Chūō, is the home to numerous upscale stores, boutiques, restaurants, and cafés.  It is one of the most famous and high-end shopping districts in the world.  For electronics, visit Akihabara Electric Town, a district known for new and used electronics, gadgets, and computers.

Dining options are numerous.  Take in the view at the New York Grill, on the 52nd floor of the Park Hyatt but also visit China Blue in the Conrad, and Ginza Kyubei, which is perhaps the most famous sushi restaurant in Japan.

For entertainment, try traditional kabuki dance-drama.  The renowned Kabuki-za Theater is temporarily closed for reconstruction (it reopens in 2013) but performances are being held at the nearby Shinbashi Enbujō.  Sumo wrestling at the Ryōgoku Kokugikan (also known as Sumo Hall) is also worth taking in.

Trade show visitors will probably visit the Tokyo Big Sight, formally known as the Tokyo International Exhibition Center.  Its most distinctive features are its four glass-and-titanium inverted pyramids. Located in Odaiba, Tokyo Bay, it opened in 1996 and is the home of the Tokyo Motor Show and many other events.

Other must-see attractions include the Buddhist Senso-ji Temple and, in springtime, the cherry tree blossoms in Ueno Park, home of the Tokyo National Museum.

Finally, the observation deck at the Tokyo Tower, which at 332.5 meter s(1,091 feet) is the second tallest structure in Japan has wonderful views of the city in all directions.

IF YOU GO

Numerous airlines including American Airlines, All Nippon Airways (ANA) , Japan Air Lines, and United have non-stop flights to Tokyo from the U.S.   ANA is the launch customer for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and is currently the only airline flying that type.

Two airports serve Tokyo, Haneda (more formally known as Tokyo International Airport) and Narita International Airport.  Haneda is 14 km (8.7 miles) from the city and handles almost all domestic flights as well as select international ones.  Narita is 57.5 km (35.7 miles) from the city and handles the majority of international traffic.

There are literally thousands of hotels and ryokans (traditional Japanese inns) to choose from. Many frequent visitors stay at the new Conrad Tokyo (with a direct monorail connection to the Big Sight) and at the Park Hyatt.

(Photos: Jonathan Spira)

“It carries a ton of stuff, without screaming, ‘Look at me; I’m a camera bag!’”

Mark Elias is enthusing about his Think Tank Photo Urban Disguise 60 shoulder bag,appreciative that it can accommodate his MacBook Pro, his primary camera, three lenses, a strobe, a point-and-shoot camera, power cords and a computer mouse.

And Elias should know a thing or two about the potential travails of traveling with camera equipment. The soon-to-be Delta million miler is usually on the road about two weeks out of every month, testing and photographing new cars around the world for MNM Media’s Leftlanenews.com and reporting on classic cars for Autoweek magazine.

The knack for doing what seems like a dream job for many was clearly long ago imprinted in Elias’s DNA. “I’ve been a car guy probably from the time I was three years old, and a photographer for nearly as long.”

And what exactly does that dream job involve? “I’m among the first people to get into new cars right after they are designed by the manufacturers for production. (There are around 300 automotive journalists in the U.S.) We drive them, evaluate their abilities and features, comment on their styling, etc. Sometimes the manufacturers listen to what we say, and sometimes not!”

Given the frequency of his travels, it’s no surprise that Elias has some very strong opinions about airplanes, as well as cars. He explains that most of his frequent flyer miles are what he terms “hard miles, not miles that are enhanced with extra Medallion Qualification Mile bonus points that come with increased-cost tickets.”

His preferred aircraft is the Boeing 767-ER (“In front of the curtain! Lie-flat beds!”) but he typically finds himself aboard Boeing 757s, preferring those with in-seat monitors.

He doesn’t mince words when it comes to his least-favorite aircraft: “I absolutely hate the [Boeing] 75N  that Delta has absorbed following their acquisition of Northwest Airlines!”

However, Delta Air Lines wins high praise from the West Palm Beach, Florida-based Elias as his favorite carrier. It’s only natural, then, that he would choose Palm Beach International (PBI) as his top airport, in part, because of his fondness for the staff at its Delta Sky Club. For Elias, after departing from PBI, his trips usually involve connections at Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport.

Along with offering praise when he finds airlines doing things right, Elias also has some suggestions for improving air travel, such as removing two or three rows of seats, and spacing the remaining ones a little farther apart, and providing healthier food for purchase, including salads on every flight. As for jetlag, his remedy is to “Jump right into whatever time zone I’m in. That, and [eating] a Granny Smith apple a day!”

Jetting around the world trying out new cars means that Elias has had some larger-than-life experiences. Like the time he found himself in Rovinj, Croatia, test-driving the 2012 Bentley Continental GTC convertible.

“I didn’t know what to expect there,” he recalls, “but I found friendly people and stellar, lightly-traveled roads. I flew in on a charter to Pula, which still has some vestiges of past Marxist regimes, as well as a Coliseum-style ruin. The Adriatic coastline is stunning, including its version of the French Riviera, the seaside town of Opatija.”

Clearly, such trips go a long way toward making the “hard miles” worthwhile.

[Photos: Gary Anderson (Mark Elias); Mark Elias (sunset)]

American Airlines, currently the world’s fourth largest airline (and number three in the U.S.), was founded in 1930 as American Airways.

Generations of business travelers grew up playing with Frisbees, a flying disc that got that moniker in 1957.  Wham-O, the manufacturer, adopted the name after finding out that Connecticut college students had already borrowed the name for what was then called the Pluto Platter from the Frisbie Pie Company in the same state.

The Saab 340 turboprop aircraft had its first flight in 1983.  As of 2009, there were 413 340s in service with 61 operators in 30 countries.

The first Boeing 747-400 aircraft (pictured) was delivered to launch customer Northwest Airlines (now merged with Delta Air Lines) in 1989.  Its innovations included a two-pilot glass cockpit, which rendered the flight engineer unnecessary, more fuel efficient engines, an all-new interior and had a maximum capacity of 660 passengers (747-400D).

In 1942, Winston Churchill became the first British prime minister to take a transatlantic flight.  Churchill flew in a BOAC Boeing 314 flying boat from Bermuda to Plymouth.

On January 19, 1937, Howard Hughes set a transcontinental air record.  He flew his custom-built monoplane from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J. in 7 hours, 28 minutes, and 25 seconds.

In 1991, Eastern Air Lines shut down.  The airline stopped flying on January 19 at midnight.

In 2005, Airbus unveiled the A380 superjumbo in Toulouse, France.  The A380 continues to be the largest passenger aircraft in operation.

In 2009, US Airways flight 1549 made history as the first water landing without loss of life.

And if you are in the mood for an in-flight beverage, keep in mind that January 16, 1919 was the first day of Prohibition, as the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes,” became the law of the land.  (Prohibition was repeated in 1933.)

The cause was polycystic kidney disease and complications stemming from a subsequent kidney transplant, said his brother Jonathan Spira, who is also a co-founder of the two publications.

In 1991, two years before the invention of the first Web browser, Mr. Spira founded the Internet Baseball Awards.  He was considered an important pioneer in Usenet online baseball discussion groups including rec.sport.baseball, and helped found Baseball Prospectus, a Web site that focuses on the sabermetric analysis of baseball.

While primarily known as a researcher, Mr. Spira published two groundbreaking articles, “The Boys of Late Summer,” examining the differences between players born in August versus the 11 other months of the year (“The lesson: If you want your child to be a professional baseball player, you should start planning early. Very early. As in before conception”) in Slate magazine, and “Pitching to the Score,” a piece that examined whether some pitchers “pitch to the score” to win versus simply allowing the fewest number of runs possible, in Baseball Prospectus 1997.

His final article appeared today in Frequent Business Traveler on the topic of buying books online.

Mr. Spira, with Sean Forman, created the BaseballBooks.net site in 2001, and served as an editor and researcher for a variety of books and publications including Maple Street Mets Annual (2008-11), Ultimate Yankees Companion (2008), USA Today Sports Weekly’s Best Baseball Writing 2005, ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia (2004-08), and Sports Illustrated Sports Almanac (2000-01).

Mr. Spira was a thoughtful and fastidious editor whose goal was always clarity and logic. He had a unique style of editing that pulled no punches in getting his thoughts across.

“His curiosity, his need for information, was virtually unquenchable,” said his brother Jonathan, whose book on Information Overload was published last year. “His ability to assimilate information was unsurpassed. His ability to draw conclusions and see around corners that other people didn’t see was particularly unparalleled.”

Mr. Spira also inherited his parents’ love of books and collecting bug and had assembled a voluminous library of contemporary sports books that numbers in the thousands.

Greg Andrew Spira was born in New York City on April 27, 1967 to S. Franklin and Marilyn Spira.  His mother was a magazine editor; his father, known as Fred, was the founder of Spiratone, a company that became the largest retailer of photographic accessories in the U.S. by the 1980s.

Mr. Spira graduated from Bayside High School in 1985 third in his class and magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1989.

Besides his brother, Jonathan, Mr. Spira is survived by his mother, Marilyn.

In memory of Mr. Spira, Accura Media Group, publisher of Frequent Business Traveler and The Diesel Driver, will donate airline miles to one of several charities including the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the Polycystic Kidney Disease Foundation for each new subscriber to its new weekly Frequent Business Traveler newsletter that Greg helped create, with a goal of donating at least 100,000 miles.  There is no charge for a subscription.

Photo: Greg Spira (right) with his brother, Jonathan, at his graduation from Harvard. Photo by Fred Spira.

Long dependent on pearl diving and fishing for economic survival, and a nexus for nomadic Bedouin tribes, things began to change for Doha in 1939, when oil deposits were discovered, although fuel exports wouldn’t commence for another decade. Along with the development of Qatar’s oil and other natural reserves came the need to bring in much of the country’s workforce from abroad, as well as to import the huge volume of commodities that the country is unable to produce for itself.

An average per capita income forecast to reach $109,000 (the world’s highest) in 2012 by Qatar National Bank Capital, and a GDP of $179,000 per capita, according to CIA – The World Factbook, also make Qatar an important market for luxury goods.

Given the diversity and wealth of Doha’s population, it’s not surprising that attractions take many contemporary forms, while also offering insight into the region’s rich history and culture.

ART AND CULTURE

Designed by award-winning architect I.M. Pei, the Museum of Islamic Art houses a stunning collection of 13 centuries of Islamic art. Art and artifacts range from such finds as a 16th-century silk carpet to a 17th-century gold falcon from India, inlaid with precious stones, as well as glassware, manuscripts, paintings, jewelry, statues, sculpture and porcelain.

The artwork’s abundant geometric and floral designs and images reflect taboos in traditional Islam against depicting human forms in art, although anthropomorphic pieces are also included. It’s easy to get lost in the sea of exquisite, ancient items, but don’t forget to look up at the stunning, multi-layered skylight and to take in the extraordinary lines of the building from different vantage points.

SHOPPING

A warren of passageways wend through Souk Waqif, with vendors selling colorful wares, including spices, rugs, pots of many sizes (the largest of which are often used for cooking camel), clothing, jewelry, and food. Souk Waqif also includes a falcon market, which is not to be missed. So popular is falconry among Qataris (some of the birds go for as much as $125,000) that Souk Waqif  is also home to a falcon hospital.

In addition to more traditional souks, modern malls with well-known international chain stores are plentiful. Some shopping centers also opt for surreal attractions: Villaggio Mall is replete with indoor canals, gondolas helmed by costumed gondoliers, and faux blue-sky ceilings, while City Centre mall has amusement parks, a skating rink and a bowling alley. High-end big-ticket items and conspicuous consumption are par for the course in Doha (Bentley Mulsanne, Swarovski crystal-bejeweled chador, or Porsche Design Blackberry, anyone?).

HOTELS

Doha’s many modern hotels include W Hotel & Residences Doha, Ritz-Carlton, and the Four Seasons. The new 137-room Grand Heritage Doha Hotel & Spa overlooks the Aspire Academy for Sports Excellence, which hosts such sporting events as Grand Prix auto races. Hotels scheduled to open in 2012 include the St. Regis Doha, in February, and the Shangri-La Doha, in Q4.

GETTING THERE

Qatar Airways is the country’s flag carrier, and Doha is also served by numerous international airlines, including Lufthansa, British Airways, KLM, and Turkish Airlines. United Airlines is scheduled to launch flights from Washington Dulles to Doha, via Dubai, in May 2012.

With an opening scheduled for 2012, the New Doha International Airport will be Qatar Airways’ new hub. It will be able to accommodate 50 million passengers annually once completed, which is scheduled for 2015. The new airport will also be able to accommodate the Airbus A380.