Earhart, Amelia (1898–1937)

The first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, Amelia Earhart is shown here on a visit to Honolulu, Hawaii, in the mid-1930s.

US aviation pioneer and author, who in 1928 became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. With copilot Frederick Noonan, she attempted a round-the-world flight in 1937. Somewhere over the Pacific their plane disappeared.

Born in Atchison, Kansas, Earhart worked as an army nurse and social worker, before discovering that her true calling lay in aviation. In 1928 she became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic as a passenger and in 1932 completed a solo transatlantic flight. During a flight over the Pacific in 1937, her plane disappeared without trace, although clues found in 1989 on Nikumaroro Island, southeast of Kiribati's main island group, suggest that she and her copilot might have survived a crash only to die of thirst.

In 1997, Linda Finch completed a round-the-world flight to duplicate and complete Amelia Earhart's last journey. Finch landed in Oakland, California, after following the Equator in her twin-engine Lockheed Electra 10-E plane. She dropped a wreath on Howland Island in the central Pacific close to the area in which Earhart disappeared.