Amelia Earhart and Lockheed Electra

Title: Amelia Earhart. Born July 24, 1897 Atchison, Kansas, U.S. Disappeared: July 2, 1937 (aged 39) Pacific Ocean, en route to Howland Island. Status: Declared dead in absentia. January 5, 1939 (aged 41). NASA Center: Headquarters. Image #: SI-A-45874. Date: UNKNOWN Photography: Photographs are not protected by copyright unless noted.

Reference Numbers: Center: HQ Center Number: SI-A-45874. GRIN DataBase Number: GPN-2002-00021. Source Information: Creator / Photographer: Smithsonian Institution. Original Source: DIGITAL.

Publication Information: The image number assigned to this image is not an official NASA number. It is a Smithsonian Institution photo number. Credit for this image should be attributed to the Smithsonian Institution.

This work is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1923 and 1963 and although there may or may not have been a copyright notice, the copyright was not renewed. Unless its author has been dead for the required period, it is copyrighted in the countries or areas that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works, such as Canada (50 pma), Mainland China (50 pma, not Hong Kong or Macao), Germany (70 pma), Mexico (100 pma), Switzerland (70 pma), and other countries with individual treaties. See Commons: Hirtle chart for further explanation.

Amelia Earhart standing in front of the Lockheed Electra in which she disappeared in July 1937. Born in Atchison, Kansas in 1897, Amelia Earhart did not begin flying until after her move to California in 1920. After taking lessons from aviation pioneer Neta Snook in a Curtiss Jenny, Earhart set out to break flying records, breaking the women altitude records in 1922.

Earhart continually promoted women in aviation and in 1928 was invited to be the first women to fly across the Atlantic. Accompanying pilots Wilmer Stultz and Louis Gordon as a passenger on the Fokker Friendship, Earhart became an international celebrity after the completion of the flight. In May 1932 Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across in the Atlantic. In 1935 she completed the first solo flight from Hawaii to California. In the meantime Earhart continued to promote aviation and helped found the group, the Ninety-Nines, an organization dedicated to female aviators.

On June 1, 1937, Earhart and navigator, Fred Noonan, left Miami, Florida on an around the world flight. Earhart, Noonan and their Lockheed Electra disappeared after a stop in Lae, New Guinea on June 29, 1937. Earhart had only 7,000 miles of her trip remaining when she disappeared. While a great deal of mystery surrounds the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, her contributions to aviation and womens issues have inspired people over 80 years.