Amelia Earhart

She was engaged to Samuel Chapman but the alliance broke sometime in 1928. She then went on to marry George Palmer Putnam in 1931. Although the couple had no children of their own, Putnam had two sons from his previous marriage.

There has been immense debate about the death of Amelia Earhart. Many believe that her flight crashed in the second around-the-world tour on July 2, 1937, while there have been other suggestions that her plane disappeared. Either way, there have been no records of Earhart or her flight.

After her last recorded cockpit message, the United States Navy searched for Earhart and her flight, but much in vain. Her husband, Putnam also launched several search operations but requested to have the search status, ‘declared death in absentia’. Thus, Earhart was declared legally dead two years after her disappearance in 1937.

Amelia Mary Earhart was born to Samuel ‘Edwin’ Stanton Earhart and Amelia ‘Amy’ Otis Earhart. She was the second child born to the couple after a stillborn baby.

From a very young age, she had an adventurous spirit and loved to play outdoors. She was later sent to live with her grandparents, when her parents shifted to Des Moines.

For most part of her early-life, she was home-schooled by her mother and a governess. She was very fond of reading and would spend hours in the family library, reading voraciously.

When the family reunified in 1909, she was sent to school where she studied from the 7th grade till 12th grade.

She then enrolled to Hyde Park High School, from where she graduated in 1916. After graduating, she studied at Ogontz School in Pennsylvania, but failed to complete her program there.

On December 28, 1920, she visited an aerodrome with her father, where Frank Hawks, an air racer, inspired her to pursue a career in aviation. During this time, she became determined to fly, and took up a number of odd jobs to save up money for ‘flying lessons’.

In 1921, she took flying lessons from Neta Snook, a pioneer female aviator, and purchased her first aircraft, a yellow, Kinner Airster biplane, which she fondly called ‘The Canary’. The following year, she created history, by flying the Airster to an altitude of 14,000 feet, setting a world record for female aviators.

She became the 16th woman to have been issued a pilot’s license by the ‘Federation Aeronautique Internationale’ on May 15, 1923.

Around the same time, the family was going through a very rough financial patch and in order to support her family, she had to sell ‘The Canary’ and bought a ‘Speedster’, which she called ‘Yellow Peril’.

She began to work as a social worker at the Denison House, in 1926, where she helped children.

In 1928, she authored the book ’20 Hrs. 40 Min.: Our Flight in the Friendship’ . The book includes details about her first flight across the Atlantic by air and her other important accomplishments. This is largely considered one of her greatest written works and was listed by the ‘National Geographic’ as one of the ‘100 greatest adventure books of all time’. The same was republished in 2003.