Forbidden History - Charles Lindbergh: Celebrity, Scandal and the Birth of “America First”

Episode Date: September 22, 2026

Charles Lindbergh became a global icon after his record-breaking flight across the Atlantic—but behind the heroic image lay a far more controversial figure. Historian Nigel Jones explores his extraordinary life, political beliefs, and enduring connection to “America First." Cast List: Eric Meyers: Narrator Nigel Jones: Historian Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Forbidden History Podcast. Be sure to catch our Patreon exclusive Inner Circle series, featuring live expert interviews and deep dives into your favorite topics. Thanks for supporting the show. The year is 1974, and Charles Lindbergh knows that he is dying. Since the day his solo transatlantic flight catapulted him to worldwide fame nearly 50 years earlier, every chapter of, his life has been lived in front of the cameras.

But in his secluded home overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Lindbergh is focused on something the public knows nothing about. And in a final series of letters, he pleads for the recipients to remain silent. His last secret, must he insists, survive him. Limburg at the end of his life did have a secret side, but importantly because his public Fasarv was always such a major part of him. We didn't know that he had a secret side. The letters are posted to Germany, and not long after, Lindbergh succumbs to illness and

dies. America mourns its loss. But decades after his death, that secret would be revealed. And when it is, it adds yet another layer to a man whose life and legacy remain fascinating, yet contradictory to this day. To take us through it is author and historian Nigel Jones. He was courageous and adventurous. He was egotistical. There's no doubt about that.

There was a positive side to him and there was an utterly negative, abhorrent side to him. He was a superhuman hero, and at the same time, he was a hero with feat very much of play. Welcome to the podcast series that explores the past's darkest corners, sheds light on the lives of intriguing individuals, and uncovers the truth buried deep in history's most controversial legacies. I'm Eric Myers, and this is forbidden history. It's the early 1900s, and the world is on the precipice of a new age. Internal combustion engines are beginning to send horses into early retirement. Electricity is banishing darkness, and mass production will soon reshape entire economies.

There was a feeling abroad both in Europe and North America that we were really on the verge of great things and there was a great feeling that technology could solve the problems that technology was the future and that the 20th century would throw off the restraints of the 19th century and all the old-fashioned rubbish there and go forward into bright new vistas. into this brave new world that Charles Lindbergh is born in 1902, just a year before the Wright brothers make their first flight. It's therefore little wonder that Lindbergh will grow up obsessed with technology. He seems to have grown up completely entranced with technology and started messing around with cars and with aircraft as soon as I was going to say as soon as he could walk, but certainly

in his adolescence. And he was really entranced with the possibility. that technology opened up. Like many children of the early 20th century, Lindbergh dreams of a life working with the new technologies of the day. And so he begins a course in mechanical engineering at the University of Wisconsin. But in the middle of his sophomore year, he decides that his real passion lies elsewhere.

I think he probably was not particularly gifted at the technical side of it, oddly enough. enough. He just wanted to master enough that would help him as a pilot, as a flyer, and was interested in that side of it. I don't think he was a person who wanted to build bridges or design new

engines, although obviously that was part of it. And I think he didn't want the academic side of it. He wanted to get his hands dirty. He wanted to actually get in the cockpit and fly. That's probably why he gave up the studies early. To pursue his dreams, Lindberg

enrols at the Nebraska Aircraft Corporation Flying School in Lincoln. But without the money to pay the required damage bond, he isn't able to fly solo. And so, to gain experience, he offers his services as a mechanic to a stunt pilot, and through him is introduced to the phenomenon of barnstorming. Barnstorming were things like looping the loop

and actually the tricks of the trade of the flyers, the flyers who went up in the air, those magnificent men in their flying machines, literally, and thrilled. It became sort of the social event of the calendar in the early 1910s. There were great flying shows, flying displays which attracted audiences of thousands. To help draw larger crowds and earn some money, Lindbergh becomes a wing walker. This phenomenon of barnstorming is revealing of how the general public sees aviation in this early era. It's a circus act. The era of mass civil

aviation is still decades away. Most people view aircraft as far too dangerous to want to climb on board themselves. At the beginning, a lot of people were blind to the possibilities and the potential of aviation. It was regarded rightly so as highly dangerous because of the number of crashes, like a helicopter crash today or a hot air balloon flying out of the sky. Not many people survived an aircraft crash, so there was a high mortality rate. By May 1923, Lindbergh has saved enough money to undertake his first solo flight. He qualifies as a pilot the following year before enrolling in the U.S. Army Air Service Flying School, where he ranks first in his class.

But with most military leaders and politicians still skeptical about the potential of aviation, there are few opportunities for him in the military. And so he becomes an airmail pilot, a notoriously dangerous occupying. He was fearless, I think that that should be emphasized as well. Incredibly courageous and brave, but careful as well. When he got into a car, he always checked everything, the fuel, every button he pushed and pressed, because he couldn't get out of the habit. He did that every time he got into an aircraft.

He was very cautious, but courageous at the same time, an interesting combination. Flying the US Air Mail routes will give him a far tougher education than any classroom can provide, as he learns to fly through darkness, storms, and extreme fatigue. But the experience will prove priceless when he decides to take on the challenge of his life. A few years earlier in 1919, when Lindberg was still living on his family farm, British aviators had completed the first non-stop transatlantic flight.

It should be remembered, and it's often forgotten, that he wasn't the first man to fly across the Atlantic. That on the, belonged to a couple of times. of Englishmen, ex-war-time aviators called O'Cock on Brown, and they flew across in a large bomber of Vicketts Vimy, it was called, a very cumbersome and ugly-looking aircraft. They started their flight in Newfoundland, and they flew and landed in a bulk in Ireland. Around the same time, Raymond Orte, a French immigrant who'd made his fortune in New York, offered $25,000 to the first aviator who could fly non-saintopement.

between New York and Paris. Over the next few years, decorated flying aces, test pilots, and experienced multi-man crews would take up the challenge. None would succeed. Airplanes explode on runways. Entire crews vanish into the depths of the Atlantic.

But as Lindberg reads about their attempts, he becomes more and more convinced that they're going about it the wrong way. Their planes are too big, their crews too large, large, their strategies too complex. He thinks that a simple plane, with one engine, flown by one man, could finally claim the prize.

And he comes to believe that that man is him. He was courageous and adventurous. I don't think he needed the money, but he wanted to be the one to do that. He was egotistical, there's no doubt about that. But he saw it as a technical challenge, you know, was it actually technically possible to stay in the air for that long. That was a hell of a challenge. That was a hell of a thing to do. But Limburg is still a mere airmail pilot, and securing the financing for an attempt is no mean feat. But eventually, he convinces a handful of St. Louis businessmen to take a gamble on him.

And when the small Ryan Airlines Company of San Diego agrees to design and build him a simple monoplane for $10,000, he has everything he needs. In honor of the men who've taken a chance on him, he names it the Spirit of St. Louis. And so, on the morning of the 20th of May, 1927, he climbs into his plane at an airfield on Long Island to embark on the journey of a lifetime. The aircraft is so heavy with fuel that it has to be helped down the runway by men pushing on the wing struts. When it takes to the air, it barely clears the telephone lines at the far end of the front. field by 20 feet. But nevertheless, the take-off is a success. Ahead of him lies a 3,600-mile crossing.

Limbo was in the air for 33 hours, not stop, alone in this tiny little monoplane. He wrote a book about it, and no one has ever described it better than that. It's the loneliness and the fact that many times he was flying blind, flying navigational instruments were in their infancy, didn't know where he was, had to to go down to the level of the waves, the waves were crashing away just a few feet under his aircraft. He couldn't see he was in cloud, he was in mist, he couldn't see where he was going. He was flying, literally flying blind. At 9.52 a.m. New York time, 27 hours after takeoff, he is relieved to spot porpoises and fishing boats. Below him is the coast of Ireland. He has successfully crossed the Atlantic and is on the

final stretch. Keen to reach the French coast during daylight hours, he increases his speed and is spotted by the excited residents of Plymouth, England, as he flies over on his way to the English Channel. News of the siding spreads, and by the time he reaches Paris, there's a vast crowd waiting for him. And it's quite amazing that publicity that he got already crowds knew that he was coming and there were enormous crowds of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people at the Bourget Airport near Paris where he was going to land before he had ever completed the flight. After a victory lap of the Eiffel Tower, he soars over the onlookers at Le Bourgete Aerodrome. Over the course of 33 and a half hours, he and his aircraft had battled ice and fog,

while Lindberg had struggled through hallucinations caused by extreme fatigue. And yet, he'd done it. At 10.22 p.m. local time, on the 21st of May, his plane comes to a halt in front of a cheering crowd and a bank of cameras. Charles Lindbergh staggers out triumphant. Soon the images of him and the news of his achievement will travel around the world. Immediately, he started getting lavished with awards. He got the French Lejeon d'Enre, the highest award that France can give.

and when he got back to America, President Coolidge gave him. I think it was the Congressional Medal of Honor and things like that. And it helped that he was a tall, blonde, blue-eyed, very good-looking young man. It looked like a kid, always looked younger than his age, and he was only 22, and he looked about 17, and he was extraordinary. The amount of publicity he got, so he literally became the most famous man in the world, the most photographed man in the world, of course, and filmed man in the world. By the summer, Charles Lindbergh is a man in demand.

Kings, presidents, and the general public alike want to catch even a glimpse of him. But fame is a bargain no one truly understands when they make it. And for Lindberg, the cost will prove unimaginable. Lindberg uses his newfound fame to promote the cause of aviation, climbing back in the spirit of St. Louis and touring the globe,

wherever he goes, Europe, America, Latin America, he receives a hero's welcome. But it's a trip to Mexico that will lead to the next big event of his life when he meets the woman who will soon become his wife. She was an intellectual, wanted to become a writer, and she was the daughter of the newly appointed American ambassador to Mexico. But she met Limburg, and first of all, she thought she fancied him. Her name is Anne Morrow. Physically, the pair are opposites. She's small, dark, and pretty. He's tall, blonde, and handsome.

And in their characters, they couldn't be more different. She complained to her sister that he never read a book. He wasn't an intellectual. And she did read books. She wrote Plato and Schopenhauer and so on and wanted to be an intellectual, wanted to be a writer. But then, of course, she fell in love with him. They fell in love with each other. and very rapidly they got married. The marriage puts Lindberg back on the front pages once more, and this time as one half of America's golden couple. But after conquering the Atlantic,

Lindberg is hoping for a quieter life. And so the newlyweds moved to a house in Hopewell, New Jersey, away from the news cameras. A year later, they have their first of six children, a son whom they name Charles Lindberg Jr. But in March 1932, they will be back in the media spotlight once more, this time due to a tragedy. One night the child was in his room in the house. They had a nanny there who looked after them, but they were living there as a couple,

and he disappeared from his cot. He disappeared from his crib. And horror, where the hell was this baby, this much-beloved little child. And Limburg found on the windowsill of the boy's room, the baby. a note demanding a ransom, I think of something like $70,000, and they realized to their horror at once that their child had been kidnapped. The press descends on Hopewell in their hordes, in a media storm that won't be matched until Kennedy's assassination. People remember where they were when they heard the news that the Lindbergh baby had been kidnapped. Not many people know that, in fact, it was the basis of Agatha Christie's famous novel Murder on the Orange Express.

the fame or infamy of that particular crime spread around the world immediately and added to the fame that Lindberg and this dream couple already had, redoubled the fame that they had. Desperate to get his son back, Lindbergh pays the ransom. But when the kidnappers give directions to find the child, the child is not there. On the 12th of May, six weeks after the kidnapping, the remains of Charles Lindbergh Jr. are discovered a few miles from the family home.

The police eventually arrest and charge a German illegal immigrant called Bruno Richard Hauptmann. He has tried, arrested, and sentenced to death. Hauptmann protests his innocence until the very end, but the sentence is carried out. The whole ordeal convinces the Lindbergs to leave America. By this time, Lindbergh and his wife had left America. They just couldn't take the absolute enrush of mad publicity that accompanied the kidnap and murder of their child. On top of the original publicity for the flight,

the publicity for the murder of the kid, just too much for them. They overwhelmed them, and they hated newspaper men, they hated the press. They hated all the publicity by that time. The Lindbergs hoped they can start afresh in Europe, away from the media spotlight and live as a normal family.

But it's while in Europe that Charles Lindbergh encounters an ideology that will stain his reputation to this day. Away from the media spotlight, Lindberg continues with research he had begun a couple of years earlier. Anne's older sister had been diagnosed with a fatal heart condition, and Lindberg had begun to think about how damaged hearts might someday be repaired. Now in Europe, he begins working with a French surgeon called Alexis Carroll. He cooperated in the development of a pump, which has now fallen out of use. It was a feasible, it was a recognized medical device that he used.

The device keeps organs alive outside of the body and is a breakthrough that will one day lead to developments in organ preservation and modern transplantation techniques. Carol becomes a hero to Lindberg, but he will also lead the aviator down a dark path into a branch of science that will soon prove devastating. It's thought that Alexis Correll, the surgeon with whom he developed this hunt, believed, as did many people at the time in the science of eugenics, that the human stock could be actually improved,

and more than that, that anyone who fell short of the perfect, human being, i.e. mentally and physically handicapped and disabled people, were not worthy of life and should be eliminated. Eugenics had emerged in the late 19th century in the wake of Darwin's theory of evolution. Its supporters believe that traits such as intelligence, mental illness, criminality, and even moral character, were largely inherited through a person's genes. And so populations could be improved through selective reproduction. It did not take long for eugenics to become entangled with ideas of racial hierarchy. And for Lindbergh, the idea that society itself could be engineered proves deeply seductive.

He became very much persuaded of eugenics and became not only a racist thinking that some races were more superior to others, but also a eugenicist thinking that some people were not worthy of life and others were, and that it was necessary to preserve the super race, if you like, and to advance the good characteristics, the good racial characteristics, and to get rid of the others. Eugenics at the time is no fringe movement. It's discussed by scientists, politicians, and academics alike, across Europe and America.

Lindberg, a man with a strident belief in science and technology's ability to reshape the future, comes to see race through this distorted lens too. But his beliefs will soon bring him into contact with the regime building an entire political system around these ideas. What will follow is the most controversial chapter of Lindbergh's life, one that will tarnish his image to this day. 1935.

Adolf Hitler has been the dictator of Nazi Germany for two years. He's established a one-party state, and open the first concentration camps for political opponents. And now he's ready to announce that Germany has been remilitarizing and reveals the existence of an air force, the Luftwaffe. The Americans are keen to determine whether this new air force is something they should be concerned about, or if it is a mere paper tiger.

But they know that a government official will be denied access. And so they need someone the night. Nazis will want to show their Air Force too, but also someone who will understand what it is they're looking at. There's only one credible candidate, the world's most famous aviator, and the Nazis are more than happy to welcome him to Germany. The Nazis have always one eye out for people in the West who could be seduced into sympathizing with their regime. For example, the ex-king of Britain, King Edward VIII, became the Duke of Windsor and abdicated in 1936. He visited Hitler in Germany and was definitely sympathetic to the Nazis. And, you know, a number of people made tracks to Hitler's door and made sympathetic noise about him.

So Lindberg was especially valuable to the Nazis because of his worldwide fame and popularity. What begins is a series of visits by Lindbergh to 9th. Nazi Germany, and he becomes more and more impressed by what he sees. They made sure they gave him an absolute rolling out the ribbed carpet for him, but as well as that they showed Limburg the strides that they were making in aviation. He flew Nazi aircraft, he flew a BF109 fighter, which became the main Nazi fighter in the Second World War, and pronounced it as wonderful as it was indeed. And also, he had the wool pulled over his eyes. He was actually seduced into believing that the Nazi war machine, especially the Luftwaffe, the Air Force,

was more powerful than it actually was. They took him to bases. They showed him planes. They showed him the same planes more than once, so they were like a Potemkin village of aircraft. From an American intelligence perspective, Lindbergh concludes that the Luftwaffe is a formidable air force. But as he continues to return to the country, the line between observing the Third Reich, and appearing to admire it, becomes increasingly blurred. He was given a high decoration by Hermann Gering, Hitler's number two, who was, of course, the overlord of the Luftwaffe, himself a famous flyer from the First World War. He gave him Limburg a medal, decorated him, put it round his neck personally.

Just a few weeks later, Nazi mobs smash Jewish businesses, burn synagogues, and Brutel Jewish communities in a night that will become known as Kristallnacht. There are soon calls for Lindbergh to return his medal in protest. He refuses. He never ever gave that medal back, although he was asked and people demanded that he did so. He refused to. He said it would be absolutely impolite and a dishonor to the Nazis if he gave that medal back. In 1939, as the war clouds in Europe become ever darker,

Lindbergh and his family returned to America. A few months later, Hitler's invasion of Poland sparks the Second World War. Lindbergh now dedicates his time to keeping America out. He took on a specifically political role. He put himself at the head of the campaign, the very powerful campaign, and at the time, to keep America out of the war. It was called America First. The same slogan that Donald Trump has used latterly

was coined by Lindbergh and his friends. America First is a highly influential movement, and Lindbergh's isolationist views are shared by many across the states. The isolationist forces to keep America out of the war were extremely powerful. But not only there, he held mass rallies in California and in New York,

so areas that would normally be considered very liberal to left-wing, Lindberg had a lot of popularity. There was even a thought that he would join the Republicans and campaign and run for president against Franklin Delano Roosevelt. While Lindberg's belief that America should stay out of the war may not be unusual, his motivations are suspect. Secretly, although he tried to hide this fact, he actually sympathized with a lot of what was going on in Nazi Germany. He believed in eugenically engineered master race. He actually believed in that, and he actually believed in that. in that, and he liked Nazi efficiency, he liked the fact that there was no corruption as he saw it,

none of the talking shots of the democracies. He liked a totalitarian or at least authoritarian society. Finally, in September 1941, in a speech at a mass rally in Des Moines, Iowa, the mask slips. There's no doubt that Limburg was an anti-Semite. He made absolutely this plane in that he told Americans, that it was the Jews who controlled the mass media. So if you like, his hatred of the media, his hatred of the newspapers morphed into a hatred of what he considered a Jewish-run media. It wasn't true. I mean, the major newspaper owner in America, William Randolph-Hurst was, of course, not Jewish at all. But Lindberg accused the Jews of controlling both the economy and the media in America. Lindberg's speech is reported nationwide through newspapers and radio, making it effectively

an address to the entire country. It's likely the single most damaging moment of his life, as the nation's most celebrated aviator becomes one of its most controversial public figures. More than that, President Roosevelt himself wonders whose side Lindberg is really on. he openly said to one of his own Jewish cabinet ministers, Morgantau, Limburg is a Nazi. He didn't say this in public. He said it to a member of his cabinet. But he believed that, and he acted on it so that when America was dragged into the war

by Hitler declaring war on America after Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt refused to let Colonel Limburg, as he then was, into the armed forces. He actually withdrew Limburg's rank, and he didn't want him becoming a war hero. When America does join the Second World War after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Lindberg drops his isolationist campaign. He reasons that while he doesn't want America involved, America is involved, and it must win.

And so, he offers to serve as a pilot. The answer is a defiant no. Refusing to sit on the sidelines, he returns as a civilian. consultant, helping improve aircraft performance and pilot training. Eventually, he does manage to persuade commanders in the Pacific to let him fly operational missions himself. He flew 50 combat missions. He's known to have shot down at least one Japanese aircraft. So I think it's significant as well that he deliberately did not join the war fighting in Europe, fighting against his friends in Nazi Germany. he joined it fighting the Japanese in the Pacific, and the Japanese he would of course

considered an Asiatic and therefore inferior race. By 1945, Germany is burning, and in May the Third Reich surrenders to the Allies. Lindbergh is on the other side of the world, as the nation he once admired turns to ashes. But he will soon be forced to confront his past. For while Germany may be in ruins, among those ruins, are groundbreaking jet aircraft and research facilities, the latest in aviation technology. And so his expertise is again in demand,

as the Allies send him to Germany once again, this time to survey the Luftwaffe's remains. As part of his brief, he is taken to Nordhausen, where the Nazis had used forced labor to manufacture weapons under appalling conditions. Limbo made no public comments about the atrocities that were revealed after Nazi Germany was defeated, i.e. the concentration camps and then the holocaust itself. The only comments he made, he confined his own private diaries, which were only published later and after his death,

in which he did condemn the concentration camps. He said he couldn't understand how sensitive and intelligent beings like the Nazis were could have presided over this complete negation of humanity. And he did make those comments, but again, they were not publicly, reveal comments. Publicly, he staged Sturm. For nearly a decade, Lindbergh had viewed Nazi Germany through the eyes of an engineer. He'd admired its aircraft production, its industrial capacity, its military strength, and, at least in part, its ideology. Now finally, he is face to face with the human cost.

The visit doesn't change his perspective overnight, but it does seem to mark the beginning of a slow transformation. For while he will continue to pursue his passion for technological progress, he will also become increasingly worried about its impacts on humanity and the natural world. But this is still Charles Lindbergh, and the rest of his life will be anything but a straight line. In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, Lindbergh's main preoccupation is in putting the past behind him and rehabilitating his public image as an aviator. Fortunately for him, his actions over the Pacific

go some way towards doing that. He gained a certain amount of respectability that he had lost because of what was then seen as his pro-Nazi views, partly because of his war record, the fact that although a civilian, he had flown 50 combat missions, which made him a bit of a bit of,

of a hero. President Eisenhower, who of course was a great war leader, restored his rank that Roosevelt had taken away. So he got back some of the heroic gloss that he had lost. Lindberg becomes a consultant to the U.S. Air Force and the airline Pan Am. And in an effort to win back the American public, he publishes an account of his transatlantic flight, which wins him a Pulitzer Prize. By the mid-1950s, he's increasingly seen once more as the man who crossed the Atlantic rather than a Nazi sympathizer. But soon his life will take a new turn once more. The younger Lindberg had believed that technology would save humanity. But as he gets older, he begins to worry that technology, if left unchecked, might damage the

world humanity depends on. By the 1960s, he devotes increasing amounts of time to environmental causes. He ended up as an environmentalist and an environmental green campaigner, if you like, in the Pacific. He was a green about 30 years before the greens were ever invented. Lindbergh helps champion protections for endangered species and lends his support to indigenous peoples threatened by modern development. He seems to have become a new man. And tellingly, he and Anne leave behind the hustle and bustle and move to a house on a remote street. stretch of Hawaiian coastline on the island of Maui. In 1973, Lindbergh is diagnosed with lymphoma, and after treatment fails, it's to his home on Maui that he withdraws to live out

his final days. He writes those letters to recipients in Germany, begging them to keep one last secret, and on the 26th of August 1974, he dies. America mourns the loss of its national hero. President Gerald Ford issues a public tribute, calling him one of America's great heroes. And the press celebrates his legacy as one of the pioneers of modern aviation. But as the years go by, historians gain more and more access to Lindbergh's private diaries, correspondence, and notebooks. What they found was that while although he had rehabilitated his public image, In private, his views on race and eugenics had changed very little. He was always warning to the last that America was a white country essentially

and was menaced. The domination of the white races was menaced by what he called the brown and black races, which he regarded as inferior races. So I think he was a pretty unashamed racist from beginning to end. And then in the early 2000s, the secret he had worked to ensure would be concealed forever was finally revealed when a daughter asked her mother who her father really was. We only found out long after his own death in 1974 one of the major reasons why he kept coming back to Germany and that was that this man whose marriage to Anne Morel Lindbergh who had become a flyer herself and a writer herself and had become almost as famous as her husband why this golden marriage It was trumpeted in the media. It was not so golden after all, because Limburg in Germany

had not one mistress, not two mistresses, but three mistresses, and by all three mistresses he had had children. His travels in the 1950s had taken him back to Germany, and it's while in Munich that he met Brigitte Hessheimer, a hatmaker. They had three children. He also had two children with Mariette Hesheimer, Brigitte's sister, and two further children with his secretary and translator, an East Prussian aristocrat, called Valeska. So in addition to the five children that he had with his wife, with Anne Morrill Lindbergh, he had seven children in Germany, seven German children. The children did not know that their father was Limburg.

He used another name, and he would visit about three or four times a year. all three of these families. And how he thought that the seven children that he'd had would not find out the true facts of their paternity God only knows. The revelation of Lindbergh's affairs adds a final complication to an already complex man. The hero who conquered the Atlantic, the grieving father,

the inventor, the isolationist, the racist, the conservationist, the adulterer, all these and more. All these and more existed within this same individual. He was an utterly remarkable, remarkable, amazing person, but he was also, by our current standards, a racist, a proto-Nazi, and an apologist for a genocidal regime, the genocidal regime of Nazi Germany. So like all human beings, there was black and white,

there was a positive side to him, and there was an utterly negative, abhorrent side to him. And that's what's so extraordinary interesting in that he was a superhuman hero, and at the same time could be he was a hero with feet very much of clay. Today, nearly a century after that transatlantic flight, Charles Lindbergh's legacy remains a difficult one. That achievement is easy to celebrate, but the man who was behind it is not. Thanks for exploring the past with us today. If you like this episode, don't forget to leave a comment below, and feel free to leave us a rating or review. Your feedback helps us reach

more listeners like you. Thanks for listening.