Amelia Earhart

In 1897, Amelia Mary Earhart was born in a little town in Kansas named Atchison. She was the daughter of a German immigrant, Samuel Stanton Earhart and his wife, also named Amelia. She had one younger sister, Grace.

Even at a young age, she was very adventurous. When she was seven, her family went to the St. Louis world fair. There was a roller coaster there, and she begged her mother to go on it with her. When her mother refused, her father agreed to take her on it. This excited her greatly, and she squealed with joy as she went flying the air.

She did not start off her grown up life as an aviator. When she was young, she volunteered for almost a year to be a nurse in a military hospital. It wasn’t until she went to an airplane show (which were popular at the time) that she realized she would like to become a pilot.

She became only the 16^th woman to be granted an aviation license. In 1928, she was the first woman to fly over the Atlantic- as a passenger. Then in 1932, she repeated the trip as the pilot. She was also the very first pilot to ever fly solo from Hawaii to California.

Amelia was not as successful, however on her attempted circumnavigation of the Earth. In 1937 she started her flight, but not even half-way through, her brand new plane gave out. Embarrassed, she traveled back to America from Hawaii.

A couple months later Amelia tried again. This time she made it 20,000 miles, but while attempting to radio a Coast Guard ship that would guide and help her, she disappeared and was pronounced dead in 1939 at the would-be age of 41. There have been rumors about how she died, based on remnants of things from her airplane, but nothing has been proven.

Tags: Katie, Biographies, Pre-World War II

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