Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart

24/07/1897 – disappeared 02/07/1937

Pilot, author, nurse, social worker, American

During and immediately after the First World War, Amelia Earhart worked as a nurse and social worker, but in 1920 she took her first flight as a passenger, and it changed her life forever. As early as the following month, she took her first flying lesson, and in the years that followed she set several altitude and distance records.

In 1932, she became world-famous when, as the first woman—and the second person in the world (after Charles Lindbergh, 1927)—she flew solo across the Atlantic. She felt that this solo flight proved that men and women were equal in jobs that require intelligence, coordination, speed, an overview, and willpower.

On 1 June 1937, Amelia Earhart—after an unsuccessful attempt in March of the same year—tried to become the first woman to fly around the world. The route she and her navigator were to cover was 47,000 km. A month later, they had flown 36,000 km and were facing the most challenging part of the flight, with a stopover on Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean. The island is 2.5 km long and 800 metres wide. They never arrived. Neither wreckage nor human remains have been found.

Amelia Earhart had written a letter in advance to her husband—in case a flight should prove to have fatal consequences. Among other things, she wrote: “Please know I am quite aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.”

Amelia Earhart broke with the gender-role patterns of her time, became one of the first female pilots, and set a vast number of records. She encouraged other women to pursue their dreams.