Amelia Mary Earhart was a noted American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean
At the age of 7, Amelia Earhart constructed her own roller coaster using fence rails and roller skates.
Amelia Earhart and her younger sister Muriel often wore loose pants called bloomers, which shocked many ladies of the day.
During the First World War, Amelia left college and joined her sister in Toronto, Canada, to become a nurse's aid and care for the soldiers wounded in war.
After World War I Amelia Earhart returned to college and studied first automobile engine repair, then medicine and later medical research.
On Dec. 28, 1920, Amelia Earhart paid a dollar for her first 10-minute airplane ride in California.
Amelia Earhart began taking flying lessons in January of 1921 and later that year bought her first airplane with money borrowed from her mother, father and sister as well as earned from her job as a telephone operator.
In 1924 Amelia Earhart's parents divorced and Amelia sold her plane, bought a yellow sports car and drove her mother east to Massachusetts.
Amelia Earhart's mother, Amy, had become the first woman to climb to the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado, a more than 14,000-foot high climb, in 1890.
After working as a nurse's aid and telephone operator, Amelia Earhart became a social worker in Boston. Her job was to teach English to immigrant children.
In 1928, only one year after Charles Lindbergh's flight, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to make the flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Bill Stultz was flying the plane and Amelia was checking maps and keeping recordings. Since she didn't fly the plane herself, she later said that although it was a "grand experience," that she had felt like "baggage."
Overnight Amelia Earhart became an American heroine. She wrote a book and many magazine and newspaper articles and gave lectures. Publisher George Putnam was managing her career.
Amelia Earhart became a queen of merchandizing, allowing her name to be used in advertisements and put on luggage, stationary and clothing.
On Feb. 7, 1931, Amelia Earhart married George Putnam. In the past Earhart had turned down a proposal from another gentleman, saying that she didn't want to be a "domestic robot."
In 1932 Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly alone across the Atlantic Ocean.
Following her solo flight, President Herbert Hoover, who called her a "pioneer," presented Amelia Earhart with a gold medal.
In 1935 Amelia Earhart became the first person to fly alone from Hawaii to California, and later that year she became the first person to fly from Los Angeles to Mexico City.
On June 1, 1937 Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, began their flight around the world, covering the first leg from Florida to Puerto Rico. The flight took them to South America, Africa, India, Burma, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Australia and New Guinea.
Amelia Earhart and Noonan left New Guinea on July 2, 1937, headed for Howland Island, a tiny island in the Pacific only two miles long and one mile wide. They never arrived.
Amelia Earhart disappeared in the Pacific on July 3, just 21 days before her 40th birthday.
Acknowledging the dangers of attempting a flight around the world, Amelia Earhart said, "If I should pop off, it will be doing the thing I've always wanted to do."
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