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Aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart departed on a journey to turn into the first pilot to efficiently fly solo from Hawaii to mainland United States on this day in historical past, Jan. 11, 1935.
The daring flight throughout an enormous expanse of the Pacific Ocean had claimed the lives of 10 earlier aviators. She earned $10,000 from promoters in Hawaii for her death-defying achievement.
The pilot additionally hoped to promote a future in which business air journey closed the distances all over the world.
“I wanted the flight just to contribute,” Earhart stated of what was, on the time, an unprecedented journey throughout the open ocean.
“I could only hope one more passage across that part of the Pacific would mark a little more clearly the pathway over which an air service of the future will inevitably ply.”
She flew from Honolulu to Oakland, the place she landed the next day and was greeted by a crowd of some 10,000 folks celebrating her achievement.
“Though some called it a publicity stunt for Earhart and Hawaiian sugar plantation promoters, it was a dangerous 2,408-mile flight that had already claimed several lives,” writes the National Air and Space Museum.
“Earhart’s nearly 19-hour flight across the Pacific took her 600 more miles over water than Charles Lindbergh’s famous transatlantic trip.”
She made the journey in a small single-engine Lockheed 5C Vega. It marked the beginning of an unimaginable interval for air journey for the famed American pilot.
“Later that 12 months, Earhart made document flights from Los Angeles to Mexico City and from Mexico City to Newark, New Jersey,” in accordance to the National Air and Space Museum.
She additionally positioned fifth in the 1935 Bendix Race, a transcontinental race sponsored by Bendix Corporation that achieved nice renown in the Nineteen Thirties and Nineteen Forties.
Earhart was born on July 24, 1897, in Atchison, Kansas and achieved fame in her 30s as one of many nation’s most daring pilots — and one of many few ladies in what was a burgeoning and nonetheless largely male occupation of flying planes.
She turned the first lady to fly solo throughout the Atlantic Ocean in 1932, incomes a Distinguished Flying Cross from the U.S. Congress.
Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared mysteriously on July 2, 1937, close to Howland Island, a small coral shoal close to the equator about midway between Australia and Hawaii. She was trying to turn into the first feminine pilot to circumnavigate the globe.
Earhart continues to seize the general public’s creativeness immediately.
She was honored in the U.S. Capitol simply final 12 months — becoming a member of Dwight D. Eisenhower as one in every of two Americans representing the nice state of Kansas in the National Statuary Hall.
Earhart is one in every of solely 11 ladies among the many 100 Americans in the group — two for every state in the Union.
“We captured her as she often stood, in a gentle breeze, looking toward the sky with a hint of a squint in her eyes,” stated sculptor George Lundeen of the picture of Earhart in bronze, “her scarf about to blow over her shoulder … as if she’s getting ready to fly.”
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The Atchison Amelia Earhart Foundation, in the meantime, introduced final 12 months, on the eve of the 88th anniversary of her Hawaii-to-California flight, the April 2023 opening of the brand new Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum.
The new attraction in Atchison is described as “the first museum to blend STEM and historical storytelling to celebrate Earhart’s world-renowned legacy as a trailblazing aviator and innovator,” the muse stated in an announcement.
Earhart’s unimaginable 19-hour solo journey from Honolulu to Oakland is simply one in every of many flights that thrilled Americans at a time when flight invoked photographs of freedom, mastery of 1’s destiny and the pioneer spirit on the coronary heart of the nation.
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“Amelia Earhart captivated the world with extraordinary bravery, unwavering perseverance and daring determination to defy the odds and pursue her dreams of flight,” stated Karen Seaberg, founder and president of the Atchison Amelia Earhart Foundation.
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