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When 10-year-old Amelia Mary Earhart saw her first plane at a state
fair, she was not impressed. "It was a thing of rusty wire and wood and
looked not at all interesting," she said. It wasn't until Earhart
attended a stunt-flying exhibition, almost a decade later, that she
became seriously interested in aviation. A pilot spotted Earhart and
her friend, who were watching from an isolated clearing, and dove at
them. "I am sure he said to himself, 'Watch me make them scamper,'" she
said. Earhart, who felt a mixture of fear and pleasure, stood her
ground. As the plane swooped by, something inside her awakened. "I did
not understand it at the time," she said, "but I believe that little
red airplane said something to me as it swished by." On December 28,
1920, pilot Frank Hawks gave her a ride that would forever change her
life. "By the time I had got two or three hundred feet off the ground,"
she said, "I knew I had to fly."
Although Earhart's convictions were strong, challenging prejudicial
and financial obstacles awaited her. But the former tomboy was no
stranger to disapproval or doubt. Defying conventional feminine
behavior, the young Earhart climbed trees, "belly-slammed" her sled to
start it downhill and hunted rats with a .22 rifle. She also kept a
scrapbook of newspaper clippings about successful women in
predominantly male-oriented fields, including film direction and
production, law, advertising, management, and mechanical engineering.

After graduating from Hyde Park High School in 1915, Earhart
attended Ogontz, a girl's finishing school in the suburbs of
Philadelphia. She left in the middle of her second year to work as a
nurse's aide in a military hospital in Canada during WWI, attended
college, and later became a social worker at Denison House, a
settlement house in Boston. Earhart took her first flying lesson on
January 3, 1921, and in six months managed to save enough money to buy
her first plane. The second-hand Kinner Airster was a two-seater
biplane painted bright yellow. Earhart named the plane "Canary," and
used it to set her first women's record by rising to an altitude of
14,000 feet.
One afternoon in April 1928, a phone call came for Earhart at work.
"I'm too busy to answer just now," she said. After hearing that it was
important, Earhart relented though at first she thought it was a prank.
It wasn't until the caller supplied excellent references that she
realized the man was serious. "How would you like to be the first woman
to fly the Atlantic?" he asked, to which Earhart promptly replied,
"Yes!" After an interview in New York with the project coordinators,
including book publisher and publicist George P. Putnam, she was asked
to join pilot Wilmer "Bill" Stultz and co-pilot/mechanic Louis E.
"Slim" Gordon. The team left Trepassey harbor, Newfoundland, in a
Fokker F7 named Friendship on June 17, 1928, and arrived at Burry Port,
Wales, approximately 21 hours later. Their landmark flight made
headlines worldwide, because three women had died within the year
trying to be that first woman. When the crew returned to the United
States they were greeted with a ticker-tape parade in New York and a
reception held by President Calvin Coolidge at the White House.
From then on, Earhart's life revolved around flying. She placed
third at the Cleveland Women's Air Derby, later nicknamed the "Powder
Puff Derby" by Will Rogers. As fate would have it, her life also began
to include George Putnam. The two developed a friendship during
preparation for the Atlantic crossing and were married February 7,
1931. Intent on retaining her independence, she referred to the
marriage as a "partnership" with "dual control."

Together they worked on secret plans for Earhart to become the first
woman and the second person to solo the Atlantic. On May 20, 1932, five
years to the day after Lindbergh, she took off from Harbor Grace,
Newfoundland, to Paris. Strong north winds, icy conditions and
mechanical problems plagued the flight and forced her to land in a
pasture near Londonderry, Ireland. "After scaring most of the cows in
the neighborhood," she said, "I pulled up in a farmer's back yard." As
word of her flight spread, the media surrounded her, both overseas and
in the United States. President Herbert Hoover presented Earhart with a
gold medal from the National Geographic Society. Congress awarded her
the Distinguished Flying Cross-the first ever given to a woman. At the
ceremony, Vice President Charles Curtis praised her courage, saying she
displayed "heroic courage and skill as a navigator at the risk of her
life." Earhart felt the flight proved that men and women were equal in
"jobs requiring intelligence, coordination, speed, coolness and
willpower."
In the years that followed, Earhart continued to break records. She
set an altitude record for autogyros of 18,415 feet that stood for
years. On January 11, 1935, she became the first person to fly solo
across the Pacific from Honolulu to Oakland, California. Chilled during
the 2,408-mile flight, she unpacked a thermos of hot chocolate.
"Indeed," she said, "that was the most interesting cup of chocolate I
have ever had, sitting up eight thousand feet over the middle of the
Pacific Ocean, quite alone." Later that year she was the first to solo
from Mexico City to
Newark. A large crowd "overflowed the field," and
rushed Earhart's plane. "I was rescued from my plane by husky
policemen," she said, "one of whom in the ensuing melee took possession
of my right arm and another of my left leg." The officers headed for a
police car, but chose different routes. "The arm-holder started to go
one way, while he who clasped my leg set out in the opposite direction.
The result
provided the victim with a fleeting taste of the tortures of
the rack. But, at that," she said good-naturedly, "It was fine to be
home again."

In 1937, as Earhart neared her 40th birthday, she was ready for a
monumental, and final, challenge. She wanted to be the first woman to
fly around the world. Despite a botched attempt in March that severely
damaged her plane, a determined Earhart had the twin engine Lockheed
Electra rebuilt. "I have a feeling that there is just about one more
good flight left in my system, and I hope this trip is it," she said.
On June 1st, Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan departed from Miami
and began the 29,000-mile journey. By June 29, when they landed in Lae,
New Guinea, all but 7,000 miles had been completed. Frequently
inaccurate maps had made navigation difficult for Noonan, and their
next hop--to Howland Island--was by far the most challenging. Located
2,556 miles from Lae in the mid-Pacific, Howland Island is a mile and a
half long and a half mile wide. Every unessential item was removed from
the plane to make room for additional fuel, which gave Earhart
approximately 274 extra miles. The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca,
their radio contact, was stationed just offshore of Howland Island. Two
other U.S. ships, ordered to burn every light on board, were positioned
along the flight route as markers. "Howland is such a small spot in the
Pacific that every aid to locating it must be available," Earhart said.
At 10am local time, zero Greenwich time on July 2, the pair took
off. Despite favorable weather reports, they flew into overcast skies
and intermittent rain showers. This made Noonan's premier method of
tracking, celestial navigation, difficult. As dawn neared, Earhart
called the ITASCA, reporting "cloudy, weather cloudy." In later
transmissions earhart asked the ITASCA to take bearings on her. The
ITASCA sent her a steady stream of transmissions but she could not hear
them. Her radio transmissions, irregular through most of the flight,
were faint or interrupted with static. At 7:42 A.M. the Itasca picked
up the message, "We must be on you, but we cannot see you. Fuel is
running low. Been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at 1,000
feet." The ship tried to reply, but the plane seemed not to hear. At
8:45 Earhart reported, "We are running north and south." Nothing
further was heard from Earhart.
A rescue attempt commenced immediately and became the most extensive
air and sea search in naval history thus far. On July 19, after
spending $4 million and scouring 250,000 square miles of ocean, the
United States government reluctantly called off the operation. In 1938,
a lighthouse was constructed on Howland Island in her memory. Across
the United States there are streets, schools, and airports named after
her. Her birthplace, Atchison, Kansas, has been turned into a virtual
shrine to her memory. Amelia Earhart awards and scholarships are given
out every year.
Today, though many theories exist, there is no proof of her fate.
There is no doubt, however, that the world will always remember Amelia
Earhart for her courage, vision, and groundbreaking achievements, both
in aviation and for women. In a letter to her husband, written in case
a dangerous flight proved to be her last, this brave spirit was
evident. "Please know I am quite aware of the hazards," she said. "I
want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as
men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge
to others."
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