Vol. 33, No. 17
September 4, 2017
Amelia Earhart’s Life and Disappearance
Though Amelia Earhart disappeared 80 years ago while trying to circumnavigate the globe in an airplane, controversy still surrounds her fate. ...
The unresolved disappearance of Amelia Earhart, the first woman pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, has drawn widespread attention throughout the years, and continues even now, 80 years later, to generate much research and great debate.
Born on July 24, 1897, Earhart grew up with a love of adventure as she and her younger sister, Grace “Pidge,” would explore their neighborhood, climbing trees and using rifles to hunt rats. On one occasion, with the help of her uncle, the young adventurer created a makeshift roller coaster by connecting a ramp to the roof of her family’s tool shed. Completing her creative exploit using a wooden box as a sled she drove down the ramp, she marveled to her sister, “Oh, Pidge, it’s just like flying!”
In 1920, at the age of 23, Earhart would have her first real flight, an experience that would change her life forever. The young woman visited an airfield in Long Beach, California, with her father, Samuel “Edwin” Earhart, who purchased his daughter a 10-minute flight. Earhart left that short flight with a bigger passion and resolve to learn to fly. She later noted, “By the time I had got two or three hundred feet off the ground, I knew I had to fly.” Over the next year, Earhart worked a wide range of jobs, including truck driver and photographer, and diligently saved $1,000 (over $12,000 today) to put toward flying lessons.
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