I've always like to learn about Amelia Earhart when I was young, and so I'll be talking about her here, although this card seems to focus more on her disappearance at sea, the way how it happen has been a mystery to everyone that led into fiction of what could have happened, and intrigued me with wanting to learn about the first woman to fly over the atlantic ocean solo, and she also inspire a lot of women to take to the sky and not be pushed down by Man's feminist visions of women espically in her time when she was around.

So let's not sit here long and take to the skies (Like that pun there) by talking about Amelia Earhart, Pioneer Aviator in the Transportation section to Story of America Cards.

(Who is Amelia Earhart?)

Amelia Mary Earhart was an American aviation pioneer and writer. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many other records, was one of the first aviators to promote commercial air travel, wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences, and was instrumental in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots.

She was born on July 24th 1897 in Atchison, Kansas, and later in Des Moines, Iowa, Earhart developed a passion for adventure at a young age, steadily gaining flying experience from her twenties.

(Lost at Sea)

One day in 1920, when Amelia Earhart was 22 years old, she watched an air show in progress at Dougherty Field near Los Angeles. She was so impressed by the demonstration that she begged one of the pilots, Frank Hawkes, to give her a ride in his plane.

Once aloft, the freedom, exhilaration, and joy she felt convinced Amerila Earhart that flying would be her life's ambition, She quickly obtained a job to pay for her flight lessons, and within a year she became one of a only handful of American women licensed to fly at that time.

In 1928, Earhart was asked by Mis. Frederick Guest of London, England, to fly with pilot Wilmer Stutz and another crewman from Newfoundland to Wales. Mis. Guest wanted to publicize the fact that women were able to fly as well as men.

And so one year after Charles Lindbergh's epic solo flight across the Atlantic, Earhart became the first woman to fly the Atlantic.

Four years later, on May 20th 1932, just five years to the day Lindbergh's takeoff for Europe, Earhart took off on another record flight: she became the first woman to fly nonstop across the Atlantic alone, In 1935 she became the first person to fly alone from Honolulu, Hawaii, to California (2,400 miles, or 3,800 km.).

And the same year she flew nonstop from Mexico City to New York City (2,125 miles, or 3,300 km.), establishing another first.

Amelia Earhart's dream, however, had always been to fly around the world. With financial help from her husband, publisher George P. Putnam, plus money raised by Purdue University, Earhart bought a twin-engine Lockheed Electra for $50,000 (Which if I'm correct would be about $1,028,371.53 now in 2022 that is a lot!).

Then on June 1st 1937, she and her navigator, Frederick Noonan, took off from Oakland, California, on the first leg of their round-the-world journey. By June 30th they had flown 22,000 miles (36,000 km.) and traveled over five continents.

The last leg of the trip from Lae, New Guinea, to Honolulu was considered the most difficult, They had to fly 2,556 miles (4,000 km.) over the Pacific Ocean before reaching a fuel stop in the tiny Howland Islands.

Earhart and Noonan left Lae on July 2nd, But 20 hours later they were reported two hours overdue. Then a Coast Guard cutter, off the coast of Howland Island, Heard Earhart's last message: "We are circling but cannot hear you", They never arrived, and a massive search failed to locate them.

Although Amelia Earhart presumably died at sea, her disappearance remains a mystery that intrigues historians and fiction writers to this day.

(Earhart's Speculation on disappearance)

There has been a lot of Speculation on what happened to Amelia Earhart when she disappeared. Most historians hold to the simple "crash and sink" theory, but there are other theories and a number of them of what could have happened such as these ones here I'll talk about.

I'm gonna be taking these from Wikipedia and now mention too much here, (if you're not watching the youtube, I put links in video discretion for you to look at).

The Crash and Sink Theory claims Earhart and Noonan ran out of fuel while searching for Howland Island, ditched at sea, and died. The plane would have carried enough fuel to reach Howland with some extra to spare.

Another theory is the Gardner Island hypothesis; this assumes that Earhart and Noonan, unable to find Howland Island, would not waste time searching for it, instead turning to the south to look for other islands. The 157/337 radio transmission suggests they flew a course of 157° that would take them past Baker Island; if they missed this, then sometime later they would fly over the Phoenix Islands, now part of the Republic of Kiribati, about 350 nautical miles (650 km) south-southeast of Howland Island. One of the Phoenix Islands, known as Gardner Island (now Nikumaroro), has been the subject of inquiry as a possible crash-landing site.

And there is the Japanese capture theory since she disappeared around the time of world war II, it states that Earhart and Noonan were captured by Japanese forces, perhaps after somehow navigating to somewhere within the Japanese South Seas Mandate and were excused because they thought Earhart and Noonan were Spies from what I heard.

And there is a lot more after that too, which i can't explain here or it will become too long.

(Ending)

And that was Ameila Earhart, Pioneer Aviator from Story of America Cards, I'll see you next time, and speaking of next time for those who are interested in what I'll be doing next in the series I'll be taking to Daily life section cards on Famous Criminals those being Pirate, Captain Kidd who if you like persona 5 may know that name as Ryuji Sakamoto's Persona, and Bonnie and Clyde the partners of crime, so see you next time.