Amelia Earhart was born on July 24, 1897, in Atchison, Kansas, and she received her pilot's license in 1923. In 1928 she was the first woman to cross the Atlantic by air, but she rode as a passenger on the Friendship while two men flew the plane. In August 1929 she finished third in the first air race across the United States for women. In 1930 she set the women's flying speed record of 181.18 mph and earned her transport pilot's license, and in 1931 she was the first woman to fly an autogiro and set an altitude record in it. By then she had set many flying records, and she was the first president of the Ninety-Nines, a group of women pilots, from 1931 until 1933.

In 1932 Earhart became the first woman, and the second person, to fly alone across the Atlantic. She flew a Lockheed 5B Vega, which veteran pilot Bernt Balchen prepared and tested, and she left Newfoundland on May 20, 1932, departing Harbour Grace in the evening and soon running into poor weather. The altimeter malfunctioned, so she flew blind for five hours, flames spewed out the side of the engine, and ice formed on the wings and forced her to fly just above the waves. The flight took fourteen hours and fifty-six minutes, and she touched down in a farmer's field at Culmore, near Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It was her second trip across the Atlantic, making her the first person to cross it twice by air, and it made her an international hero.

Her solo flight from Honolulu to Oakland began on January 11, 1935, and flying alone from Hawaii to California was a dangerous flight to attempt in 1935. Earhart hoped it would pave the way for air travel to Hawaii, and chilled during the 2,408-mile flight, she unpacked a thermos of hot chocolate. In 1935 she joined Purdue University as a counselor on careers for women. In July 1936 she acquired a new Lockheed Electra airplane that she called her "Flying Laboratory," an Electra specifically outfitted for long-distance flights, and she intended to return it to Purdue after the world flight. In March 1937 she made her first attempt to circumnavigate the globe at the equator.

On June 1, 1937, Earhart began her second world flight attempt from Miami, Florida, flying east with Fred Noonan as navigator. Some people think she tried to fly around the world in one nonstop flight, but the world flight was made in legs, and when she and Noonan disappeared they were on the third-to-last leg. In July 1937 they left Lae, New Guinea, in a Lockheed Electra 10E, heading for tiny Howland Island, and it would take more than 18 hours to fly that distance. The Coast Guard cutter Itasca was waiting at Howland to assist her in an era before radar, and a runway and refueling station had been built there for Earhart. Radio contact between her plane and the Itasca was lost on July 2, 1937. The official U.S. search ran from July 2 to July 18, 1937, and the Navy and Coast Guard carried out a very large search that found no trace of the plane or its crew. As of November 2026 the Electra has not been found.

Words to know

• altimeter: height gauge
• circumnavigate: go around
• navigator: route finder
• cutter: Coast Guard ship
• radar: radio detector