Amelia Earhart Made Historic Flight 90 Years Ago Today: May 21, 1932

Author and blogger Mike Campbell

by HB Auld, Jr.

On May 21, 1932, 90 years ago today, famed aviatrix Amelia Earhart became the first woman to make a solo, nonstop transatlantic flight. Amelia Earhart flew across the Atlantic Ocean, landing her plane in Ireland after leaving Newfoundland just 15 hours earlier. She flew more than 2,000 miles on her flight, landing on the fifth anniversary of the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight made by Charles Lindberg on May 21, 1927.

Amelia had previously crossed the Atlantic Ocean as a member of a three-person crew. As the first woman to fly across the Atlantic with that crew in 1928, her main function was to keep the plane’s log. That flight earned Amelia national fame. Americans were enamored by the daring young woman’s crossing.

For her intrepid solo transatlantic flight on May 21, 1932, the US Congress awarded Amelia the Distinguished Flying Cross.

“…soloed again from…Hawaii to…California.”

Three years later in 1935, Amelia soloed again from Wheeler Field in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Oakland, California. That flight earned her a $10,000 prize awarded by Hawaiian businessmen.

Two years later in July, 1937, in an attempt to fly around the world, Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan, disappeared on the transpacific leg of the flight from Lae, New Guinea, to Howland Island. A complete account of her attempt and what really happened to end her flight can be found in Mike Campbell’s amazingly comprehensive book, Amelia Earhart: The Truth at Last. Mike’s book, with more than 400 pages and hundreds of footnotes, details specific eyewitness accounts of Amelia and Fred’s capture by the Japanese, their imprisonment on Saipan, their subsequent execution there, and the coverup of their execution by the US Government. The book is readily available from Amazon and is now in its Second Printing.

I also highly recommend Mike’s Weblog: https://earharttruth.wordpress.com/. Mike Campbell has more than 30 years of experience researching this First Lady of Flight and is an acknowledged expert on Amelia Earhart. Several times a week, Mike covers contemporary events concerning Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan and those who knew them, as well as precise eyewitness accounts of her flight and death in 1937 in his Weblog.