Amelia Earhart and Her Attempt to Circumnavigate the Globe

Amelia Earhart, also known by her nickname "Lady Lindy", is a famous American woman who is known for being a phenomenal aviator as well as being the first woman to fly across both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by herself. During her career as an aviator she also was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean accompanied by additional pilots on a multi-person plane. She made this trip in 1928 with other renowned aviators Lou Gordon and Wilmer Stultz. While pursuing her aviation career, she also authored and published two books that documented the accounts of her trips. Though she made several successful flight voyages over the course of her career, she is most well-known for her mysterious disappearance in during her attempt to circumnavigate the globe in July of 1937. Amelia Earhart and her co-pilot and navigator Fred Noonan suddenly disappeared over the Pacific Ocean near the island of New Guinea. The U.S. Navy as well as numerous civilian volunteers conducted an extensive search of the region in search for the pair, but no evidence nor remains were ever found. Some years later, in 1992, however, some remains from an airplane crash were found on the Nikumaroro, though there is no evidence that the remains are from the Earhart plane. To this day, no one knows quite for certain what happened that day to Earhart and Noonan.

Amelia Mary Earhart is a native of Atchinson, Kansas to parents Samuel Stanton Earhart and Amelia Otis Earhart. To distinguish between the mother and daughter Amelia Earhart's, young Amelia was often referred to as simply "Meeley", while her mother was known as Amy. From Meeley's earliest childhood, she was not like most other girls, in fact some might have referred to her as a "tomboy". Meeley was also adventurous and curious about the world around her and often spent her time climbing trees, hunting, and even attempted flight by making a make-shift sled and flying down hills. At the age of eleven though, her father was transferred to Des Moines, Iowa and it was there that Meeley first witnessed an airplane flying, at the Iowa State Fair. It was at this moment, that Meeley decided that she wanted to pursue a career as an aviator. Up until the age of twelve, both Meeley and her little sister Grace were home-schooled, though when they moved to Des Moines, they were enrolled in public school.

Though the Earhart family was considered wealthy, in large part because of Amy Earhart's parent's fortune, in 1914 the Earhart family was on the verge of losing everything. Samuel Earhart was fired from his job at the railroad due to his extreme alcoholism and the family was forced to liquidate their home and its contents. Though Samuel later found work for another railroad in St. Paul Minnesota, the family would never truly recover from that episode.

In December 1920, Samuel and Meeley Earhart visited an aviator by the name of Frank Hawks in Long Island, New York. This was the first time that Meeley had ever flown on an airplane, and she would attribute this, in addition to the Iowa State Fair, as contributing toward her interest. Soon after this flight, she began taking flying lessons and eventually purchased her own biplane. On October 22, 1922, just two years after her first airplane ride, she broke a world-record and flew to an altitude of 14,000 feet. In May of 1923, she was the 16th woman to receive her international pilot's license.