AMELIA EARHART’S BIRTH AND DEATH
AMELIA EARHART – The first person to fly solo from Hawaii to California
United States aviator Amelia Earhart became the first woman to solo cross the Atlantic Ocean after her disappearance on July 2, 1937, near Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean. She was born July 24, 1897, in Atchinson, Kansas, USA. After serving as a social worker in Boston, Earhart returned to her role as a military nurse in Canada amidst World War I.
She made history in 1928 as the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. It was in 1932 that she became the second person—and the first woman—to complete the flight solo. The first person to fly solo from Hawaii to California was her in 1935. Together with her navigator, Fred Noonan, she set out in 1937 to fly around the world. They had gone more than two-thirds of the way when her plane vanished into thin air in the middle of the Pacific. What happened to her is still a mystery.
Quick Facts
| FULL NAME | Amelia Earhart |
| BORN | July 24, 1897 |
| DIED | January 5, 1939 (legal declaration of death) |
| BIRTHPLACE | Atchison, Kansas |
| SPOUSE | George Putnam (1931–1939) |
| ASTROLOGICAL SIGN | Leo |
Amelia Earhart’s Early Years
On the 24th of July, 1897, Amelia Earhart was born in the city of Atchison, Kansas. Living with her maternal grandparents, a family in the upper middle class, was where Earhart spent a significant portion of her early childhood. Amelia “Amy” Otis, Earhart’s mother, wed a guy who had a lot of potential but was never able to break free from the shackles of alcoholism. Edwin Earhart was always looking for new ways to solidify his family’s financial situation and launch his profession.
Amy would take Earhart and her sister Muriel to their grandparents’ house whenever things were nasty. From that point on, they set out to discover the area, climb trees, catch rats, and experience the thrill of riding Earhart’s sled. Edwin Had a hard time finding and keeping a job even after his family was reunited when Earhart was 10 years old. When this happened, the family had to constantly relocate, and Earhart ended up going to a bunch of different schools. Despite having a hard time succeeding in school and making friends, she showed an early talent for athletics and studies.
After amicably resolving her marital problems in 1915, Amy took Earhart and her sister to live with friends in Chicago. At Hyde Park High School, where she studied chemistry, Earhart did quite well. It was because her father could not support the family that Earhart learned to stand on her own two feet and refuse to let anyone “take care” of her.
After finishing college, Earhart went to Toronto, Canada, to see her sister for Christmas. She decided to become a Red Cross nurse’s aide after seeing the return of injured troops from World War I. With time, Earhart became friends with other injured pilots. Being a huge fan of pilots, she would often pass the time at the adjacent airfield watching the Royal Flying Corps rehearse. Earhart began her medical education at Columbia University in 1919. A year down the road, she left to be with her parents, who were back in California.
Amelia Earhart’s Professional Career
A Pilot’s Journey
Amelia Earhart’s life was changed when she took an aircraft ride at a Long Beach air show in 1920. She understood she had to learn to fly after just 10 minutes on the ground. After racking up enough wages as a photographer and truck driver, she was able to enroll in flying lessons with pioneer female aviator Anita “Neta” Snook. Earhart spent her whole life studying to fly. She devoted a great deal of time to traveling to and from the airport and reading up on flying.
According to the fashion of other female pilots, she shaved her head. For three nights, she slept in her new leather jacket to give it a more “worn” appearance, all because she was worried about what the other, more seasoned pilots would think of her. During the summer of 1921, Earhart bought a used Kinner Airster biplane that was painted a vibrant yellow. Taking flight, she gave it the moniker “The Canary” and began her flight career.
Setting a new record for female pilots, Amelia Earhart flew her plane to 14,000 feet on October 22, 1922. Earhart became the sixteenth woman to receive a pilot’s license from the world governing organization for aeronautics, The Federation Aeronautique, on May 15, 1923. During this time period, the Earhart family made the most of their living off of an inheritance that was received from Amy’s mother’s estate. Despite Amy’s best efforts, the funds were exhausted by 1924. Due to the absence of any imminent opportunities to earn a living through flying, Amelia Earhart decided to sell her plane.
Soon after her parents’ divorce, she and her mother embarked on a cross-country journey that began in California and ended in Boston. Her financial situation became so precarious that she had to drop out of Columbia University in 1925, notwithstanding her readmission. Beginning her career as a teacher, Earhart later moved on to social work.
By 1927, Earhart had made a slow return to flying and had joined the “American Aeronautical Society’s Boston” chapter. She was a sales representative for Kinner Aircraft in the Boston region and also put a small sum of money into Massachusetts’s Dennison Airport. She became somewhat famous in her hometown after penning pro-flight pieces for the newspaper.
First Transatlantic Flight
An interest in a female transatlantic pilot emerged following Charles Lindbergh’s May 1927 solo trip from New York to Paris. An American pilot and publicity man named Captain Hilton H. Railey called Amelia Earhart in April 1928 and asked whether she would want to cross the Atlantic. Earhart immediately responded positively. The interview took place in New York, where she also met with project coordinators, including George Putnam, the publisher.
Passengers on her transatlantic journey would make history as the first female passengers. This kind of flight was considered too risky for a woman to undertake alone, according to conventional thought. Leaving Trepassey Harbour, Newfoundland, on June 17, 1928, Earhart boarded the Fokker F.Vllb/3m, appropriately called Friendship. Mechanic Louis E. “Slim” Gordon and pilot Wilmer “Bill” Stultz were her flying companions. Landing at Burry Point, Wales, UK, came about about 20 hours and 40 minutes after takeoff.
The weather forced Stultz to do all the flying. It was the agreed-upon arrangement, but Earhart later revealed that she felt like nothing more than a bag of potatoes—just cargo. Finally, she mentioned that she might give it a go on her own eventually. Upon their return to the United States, the Friendship team was welcomed with a ticker-tape parade in New York and a reception hosted in their honor with President Calvin Coolidge at the White House. Press outlets began referring to Lindbergh as “Lucky Lind,” a play on words with the appellation “Lady Lindy” for Earhart.
The Ninety-Nines
Opportunities for women in flying were something that Amelia Earhart tirelessly sought to promote. After finishing third in the first-ever transcontinental air race for women, the All-Women’s Air Derby, in 1929, Amelia Earhart helped found the “Ninety-Nines,” a global group that works to promote female pilots. She took the helm as the first president of the Association of Women Pilots, a group that continues to this day and represents female pilots from forty-four nations.
1937 Flight Around the World
On her circumnavigational journey, Amelia Earhart set out from Oakland, California, on June 1, 1937. Her goal of becoming the first pilot to complete a full circumnavigation of the Earth was definitely not achieved on her first try. Along for the ride was navigator Fred Noonan in a twin-engine Lockheed 10E Electra. After taking out from Miami, their flight took them south to South America, over the Atlantic to Africa, and then east to India and Southeast Asia. Together, they made it to Lae, New Guinea, on June 29. Lae was reached after they had flown 22,000 kilometers. Beyond Oakland, they still had 7,000 miles to travel.
Last Flight and Disappearance
Tragically, Amelia Earhart went missing on July 2, 1937, after attempting to become the first person to fly around the world in a circle around the equator. July 2 saw Earhart and Noonan leave Lae for their next refueling stop, the small Howland Island. Thereafter, Earhart was no longer seen alive. At some point when anchored off the coast of Howland Island, she and Noonan lost radio communication with the US Coast Guard cutter Itasca and vanished from sight. The president ordered a large, two-week search for the two, but they were never located. Both Amelia Earhart and Noonan were officially reported as missing at sea on July 19, 1937.
The disappearance of Amelia Earhart has been the subject of numerous hypotheses put forth by academics and aviation enthusiasts alike. Although the United States government maintains that Earhart and Noonan were killed when their plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean, there are a number of different hypotheses that have been proposed to explain their disappearance.
Understanding Earhart’s Disappearance
The Deep Sea Vision Sonar Image
The exploration team known as Deep Sea Vision made an announcement in January 2024 that they had used sonar to capture an image of something on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean that resembled the shape of a Lockheed 10-E Electra, the same plane that went missing with Amelia Earhart. They intended to keep looking at the location. Under the guidance of CEO Tony Romeo, the team spent three months scanning the ocean floor, covering an area of approximately 5,200 square miles that had never been explored before, in order to capture the image.
Though no one knows for sure, it’s thought to be approximately 100 miles away from Howland Island, according to ongoing public speculation. This object might be Amelia Earhart’s plane, according to Romeo and DSV’s “Date Line Theory,” which states that navigator Noonan made a geographic error because he neglected to take the International Date Line into consideration during the voyage.
Gardner Island Theory
According to the theory put forth by TIGHAR, the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, Earhart and Noonan flew away from Howland Island and touched down on Gardner Island, which is today known as Nikumaroro in the Republic of Kiribati, about 350 miles southwest of Howland Island. There were no people living on the island when this happened. Planes from the Navy passed over the island one week following Earhart’s death. Even though they didn’t find any planes, they did find indicators of recent human activity. Based on their findings, TIGHAR speculates that Noonan and Earhart, as castaways, may have spent days—if not weeks—on the island before dying there.
Several TIGHAR investigations on the island since 1988 have found artifacts and anecdotal evidence that lend credence to this theory. There are a number of artifacts that have been discovered, including a possible Plexiglas fragment from Electra’s window, a pair of shoes belonging to a woman from the 1930s, makeshift implements, a 1930s cosmetics container from the same woman, and what seemed to be human finger bones.
With the goal of finding any remains of Noonan or Amelia Earhart, a TIGHAR-led expedition set out for Nikumaroro in June 2017 accompanied by four border collies that had been trained to smell for bones. No remains or genetic material were located throughout the hunt. Robert Ballard, an ocean researcher who is famous for identifying the debris of the Titanic, headed a team that searched for Amelia Earhart’s plane in the waters of Nikumaroro in the month of August 2019. They failed to spot the Electra. The search was funded by National Geographic, which had intentions to broadcast a two-hour documentary later that year detailing Ballard’s endeavors.
The Theory of Crash and Sink
Based on the crash and sink theory, Earhart’s plane took a nosedive into the open ocean near Howland Island after running out of gas while searching for the island. Over the last fifteen years, multiple dive teams have scoured the ocean floor near Howland for any signs of the plane’s rubble. Tech sonar and deep-sea robots have not found anything that could lead the public to the location of the Electra’s crash.
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