Amelia Earhart (July 24, 1897 - July 2, 1937)

Amelia Earhart was born in Atchison, Kansas, in 1897. She and her younger sister, Grace Muriel, lived in the home of her grandfather, Alfred Otis, and attended a private school until 1908 when the family moved to Des Moines. As a social worker in Boston in the early 1920s Earhart realized her interest in flight. She learned to fly and bought her first airplane in 1921. The following year she broke the women's altitude record. The 1928 trans-Atlantic flight of the Fokker Friendship launched Earhart's career and established her name. As a passenger on the flight, she became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. As a part of the flight, Earhart authored "20 Hrs. 40 Min.", published by George Palmer Putnam. Earhart soon began a nationwide book tour in her new airplane. Earhart set her next record with a solo flight across the Atlantic. Aboard her Lockheed Vega, Earhart flew the 14-hour-56-minute flight from Newfoundland to Ireland in May 1932. That year Earhart was elected president of the Ninety-Nines, an organization of women pilots. In the following years she continued to set records—the first woman to fly solo nonstop coast to coast and the first person to solo over the Pacific from Honolulu, Hawaii, to Oakland, California. Earhart's love for the Midwest, her hopes for the future of aviation, and an interest in education led her to accept an appointment at Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana, as a consultant in the department for the study of careers for women. Purdue helped finance Earhart's next plane, the Lockheed Electra, and she began planning her 29,000-mile flight around the equator. On March 17, 1937, Earhart and a crew of three, Fred Noonan, Harry Manning, and Paul Mantz, departed from Oakland, California, headed west on the first leg of the flight. In Honolulu, Hawaii, Earhart had difficulty during takeoff and the Electra sustained heavy damage. The plane was returned to the Lockheed facility in California for repairs. On June 1, Earhart and Noonan departed from Miami, Florida, and headed east. At approximately 22,000 miles into the flight, they landed June 29, in Lae, New Guinea. On July 2 they departed for their 2,556-mile flight to tiny Howland Island in the middle of the Pacific. The U.S. Coast Guard cutter, Itasca, was assigned to track the plane during this leg of the flight. The Electra's last transmission was received by the Itasca at 8:43 a.m. A large search effort was begun to find the lost Electra. Since that time numerous searches have been conducted to learn the fate of Earhart and Noonan, but little conclusive evidence has been found. Some say that Earhart ran out of fuel and she ditched the plane in the ocean. Others theorize that Earhart crash landed on one of the tiny islands in the Pacific. A few organizations have conducted expensive, high-tech deep sea searches for any traces of the Electra. The mystery of Earhart's disappearance continues to inspire books, motion pictures, memorial activities, and archeological investigations to this day. Amelia Earhart was declared legally dead on January 5, 1939.