Short History Of... - Amelia Earhart

Episode Date: August 7, 2022

As one of the great pioneers of air travel, Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. She pushed aviation technology to its limits, broke countless records, and became world-famous for her skill, bravery and determination. But what prompted her to dare to take to the skies despite the overwhelming risks? Who was the real person behind the legend? And what happened on her final fateful flight—an enduring mystery that has spawned countless conspiracy theories? This is a Short History of Amelia Earhart. Written by Jo Furniss. With thanks to Susan Butler, author of East to the Dawn, the Life of Amelia Earhart. For ad-free listening, exclusive content and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Now available for Apple and Android users. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is June 17th, 1928. In Newfoundland, on the east coast of Canada, a bright orange aircraft floats on the choppy waters of Trepesee Harbour. It's a 12-seater seaplane called the Friendship, but the atmosphere on board is far from genial. Every member of the three-person crew is tense. The pilot is a man named Wilmer Stultz, known as Bill. The navigator is Lewis Gordon. In a back seat is a young social worker from Boston. She's tall and daringly dressed in trousers. She has the title of flight commander. The flight has been delayed by bad weather for weeks, and this is their third attempt at takeoff today. The plane is too heavy to get off the water. Under the Flight Commander's instructions, the fuel tanks have been underfilled to reduce weight, about 100 gallons below capacity.

But it's still touch and go. Now she orders Bill Stultz to make one last attempt at takeoff. He guns the throttle, and the friendship accelerates over the water. They need to reach 50 miles an hour in a southwesterly wind. The seaplane judders as its huge aluminium pontoons bounce off the crests of the waves, But it powers on and picks up speed. At 60 miles per hour, the flight commander's stomach drops. She cries out in delight. They are airborne at last.

Her elation is short-lived. They have an arduous journey ahead. The Fokker 7 seaplane is state-of-the-art, but the weather over the Atlantic is unpredictable. They are short of fuel, and Bill Stultz has a hangover. Although the flight commander is confident, she has also left behind a copy of her will and letters for her parents. It will be 2,000 miles before they see land again. Some 20 hours later, she is cold and exhausted. They have endured turbulence and navigated through difficult foggy conditions.

But around midday on June the 18th, Lewis Gordon shouts. He spies a coastline. They have reached Europe. But now they have to find somewhere to land. They were due to arrive in Southampton, in the south of England, but they don't have enough fuel to make it that far. Wherever they are, there is no airport, no air traffic control, no radio contact. But all they need is a sheltered stretch of water. At least the weather is calm. But all they need is a sheltered stretch of water.

At least the weather is calm. After almost an hour of circling, they aim for an estuary, beyond which there seems to be a small town. The water is as dark as iron. It rushes towards them as they descend. The flight commander braces as the seaplane slams down, its pontoons groaning with the impact. The crew don't celebrate until the friendship coasts to a stop and once again bobs on the water. A few people on the shoreline wave their hands.

Soon, a stranger in a round boat paddles out to welcome them. The flight commander shouts a greeting to the man in the coracle. He calls back in a language she doesn't understand, but using a lot of hand gestures, she learns that they need to taxi over the estuary to the west. Across the water they find a harbour, where scores of people already line the dock. As she and the crew come ashore in rowing boats,

the flight commander learns that she is in Bury Port in Wales. A long way from her destination, but she's never been happier. Soon she is surrounded by well-wishers. Tall and striking in her eccentric attire, to the residents of the tiny Welsh mining village, she is an exotic creature who descended from the sky. Everyone wants to greet the first woman to fly the Atlantic. Everyone wants to meet the person who has just become the most famous aviator in the world, Miss Amelia Earhart. Although Erhardt was not at the controls of the friendship on her first transatlantic flight, it was a voyage that changed her life. But being a high-profile passenger wasn't enough.

Years after her trip in the Friendship, she went on to become the first woman to fly alone across the Atlantic. She broke countless aviation records, pushing the technology to its limits, and she paid the ultimate price of the pioneer who takes one risk too many. But what prompted this woman to dare to take to the skies? Who was the real person behind the legend? And what happened on her final, fateful flight? An enduring mystery that has spawned countless conspiracy theories.

I'm John Hopkins, and this is A Short history of Amelia Earhart. Amelia Earhart is born in 1897 to a wealthy and influential family in the American state of Kansas. In a small town called Atchison, she enjoys a childhood typical of the period, although perhaps not typical for a girl. Her mother lets Amelia and her younger sister Muriel wear bloomers and run feral. They collect frogs and worms.

They learn to fix farm vehicles and to shoot a.22 rifle when they hunt rats in their father's barn. But one day, in 1904, seven-year-old Amelia sets her sights higher. Outside her father's tool shed, she's hammering nails into wood. She's been at it for hours. Her uncle helped with the sawing, and she's dragged her sister and a neighbor called Ralphie into her scheme. But she has done the lion's share of the

work, because she is going to be the star performer. The tool shed is eight feet high. She puts the finishing touches to a rough track running from the roof to the ground. She puts the finishing touches to a rough track running from the roof to the ground. Inspired by a visit to a travelling fairground, this is her very own roller coaster. She's already made a go-kart that will run on the track. Now she clambers up onto the roof and mounts her contraption. Amelia looks down from the top of the tool shed to see her young ground crew far below, clapping their hands and cheering.

If she is daunted by the height, she doesn't show it. She settles herself at the wheel and pushes off. The cart races down from the roof, rides the length of the track, and takes to the air. Seconds later, Amelia crash lands in the dirt yard. Muriel and Ralphie rush over to see if she has survived the rollercoaster ride. Her mother hears the commotion and runs out of the house.

The girl is bruised. Her knees are bloodied. Her lip is busted and bleeding. But she turns to her sister with a smile and says, it felt like flying. Mrs. Earhart makes her daughter tear down that roller coaster before anyone gets seriously hurt. Her uncle builds the daredevil children a swing instead. But Amelia has a taste for danger and a talent for innovation. But Amelia has a taste for danger and a talent for innovation.

Susan Butler is the author of the book East to the Dawn, The Life of Amelia Earhart. From the time she was very young, she had a daredevil streak. And it sort of never left her. She did all kinds of strange things. When she was a student at Columbia University in New York, the center of the campus of Columbia is Lowe Library, which is a dome. And she not only climbed to the top of the dome, which of course is absolutely forbidden, but she talked a friend of hers into going with her and her friend took a picture of her. And there the two of them are sitting on top of a dome. In those years, sneakers were not yet

invented. They had on hard-soled leather shoes, and it was quite dangerous. And of course, they weren't supposed to be there. And then later, she got a professor, actually, to go up with her. So she was always, always attracted by danger and by heights. Her childhood overlaps with the pioneering days of air travel. In 1908, she visits the Iowa State Fair with her family. One of the famous Wright brothers is there, giving a demonstration in his Model A biplane. But the 11-year-old Amelia is uninspired by the rudimentary aircraft, later writing that it was a thing of rusty wire and wood.

She is more impressed by other kinds of trailblazers. She collects newspaper clippings about women who succeed in male-dominated roles. The first female film director, first female lawyer, the first women to work in advertising, management, or mechanics. After her mother takes her to live in Chicago, she enrolls to study maths and science and she's tall enough to play on the basketball team. But Amelia is a loner. A caption in her college yearbook describes her as the girl in brown who walks alone.

After graduation, she trains as a Red Cross nurse, then becomes a social worker. It is not until she is 23 years old that Amelia the Maverick finds her true calling. On December 28, 1920, she visits an air show at Long Beach Airport in Los Angeles with her father. California is the Wild West of air travel. Pioneering aviators like the Wright brothers and Clyde Cessna are its cowboys. Amid an atmosphere of dust and grease, Amelia spots a sign offering pleasure flights for ten dollars. She hands over her money and clambers into the open cockpit.

The pair roar down the runway and lift off. Later she will say that she was barely off the ground when she knew she had to fly. Her mind is set. She never goes back to college. It was the time, and it was the beginning of flying. So the first time she saw a plane when she was a kid, she was mesmerized, yes.

But so was every other child. But it was when she went out to California, to Los Angeles, where her parents were when she was a college student, that she fell in love with flying because everybody in California at that point had fallen in love with flying. It was the new thing. I mean, people almost took it up like a game and they discounted the fact that it was so dangerous. And we are talking about a time when this is before parachutes were invented. So if a plane crashed, you crash with the plane. I think maybe think of it in terms of our space programs now and the first people who dared to go into space.

It was daring, it was new, it was fun. It was a challenge. Amelia is so obsessed that she books a flying lesson with the only female instructor in California, a woman called Netta Snook. Netta is also a pioneer. Among her many feats, she is the first woman to own a commercial

airfield. She teaches in an open-cockpit Curtiss aircraft that she salvaged from a crash and repaired herself. Amelia's first lesson is on the 3rd of January 1921 and lasts just 20 minutes, but that's all it takes for her to become hooked. Over the coming months, she takes various jobs, including as a truck driver and stenographer for a local telephone company, and saves up $1,000 for flying lessons. Amelia cuts her hair into a short crop, a practical style favored by female flyers. For every lesson, she has to walk four miles to reach Netta's airfield. By the end of the year, she passes her flight test.

Now she needs an aircraft. She saves up again and secures a loan from her mother to buy a second-hand Kinner Airstar. It is an open-cockpit, two-seater, single-engine plane. Netta Snook thinks it is a death trap. But Amelia is smitten with a bright yellow plane that she calls the Canary. It is with her beloved Canary that Earhart first makes it into the record books. Aged 25, she takes off from Rogers Airfield in California on October 22, 1922. Her sister Muriel is there to watch.

But Amelia is always secretive about her plans. No one knows that she's about to attempt an unprecedented feat. No one knows that she's about to attempt an unprecedented feat. Earlier, she had the Aero Club of Southern California fit a barograph in the canary so she can monitor her altitude. Now she flies up and through the clouds, watching the dial climb. To break the record, she needs to reach 14,000 feet But the weather is closing in The canary flies into a bank of fog and sleet Visibility is zero

As she approaches her target height, the engine falters and she fears it may stall But it's now or never There is not enough oxygen in the open cockpit. Amelia is freezing and gasping for breath. She watches the barograph climb. The moment the dial hits 14,000 feet, she puts the canary into a tailspin. The aerobatic stunt allows her to descend rapidly but blindly until the fog clears at 3,000 feet. As visibility returns, she spots the runway and brings the Canary in to land safely, delighted with her daredevil flight.

But instead of a rapturous celebration, everyone on the ground is stunned. An older pilot confronts her. What if the fog had reached the ground? She could have killed herself. But Amelia is unrepentant, especially when the Aero Club notes the barograph reading and registers her new altitude record. As ever, she is careful about her accomplishments while careless about her

own safety. Her exploits hit the newspapers, and the reputation of the daring young woman grows. In 1928, when a wealthy American heiress decides to fund a transatlantic crossing in an aircraft that she calls the Friendship, it is Amelia Earhart who is asked to be the star passenger. That flight from Newfoundland to Bury Port in Wales is about more than glory. The whole reputation of the aviation industry is at stake. In the late 1920s, the world of aviation is unregulated, unreliable, and downright dangerous. 1929 remains on record as the worst period for fatal aircraft accidents in the United States. But many early pioneers believe that new safety measures and regulations

mean that air transport could become the future of commercial travel. If only the public wasn't understandably scared by the idea of flying. So Amelia Earhart is put on board the Friendship to prove a point. Under the right conditions, flying is safe. Even a woman can do it. The Atlantic crossing is essentially a publicity stunt. The investors need a female passenger to become the public face of a safe and reliable aviation industry. In Amelia, they get both a poster girl and a pioneer. What happened was incredible, which is that the entire world was fixated on her flight. And for days, the only headline in the New York Times was about Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly the Atlantic. She just suddenly burst upon the world and was the most famous woman in the world.

Well, it took her, I won't say days, weeks, months, to realize that her life had totally changed. She thought she was going to go back and be a social worker. She actually tried to go back and be a social worker, but she was so famous and everybody was lined up just to say hello, just to touch her hand. After the 1928 transatlantic flight, the fame of Amelia Earhart is global, instant, and dazzling.

Amelia and the crew of the Friendship return to the United States in a festive atmosphere. There is a ticker tape parade through the Canyon of Heroes in New York City. Thousands of fans line the street. The crowd is in such a frenzy that policemen have to physically push onlookers back from the road so that the procession can pass. Amelia rides in an open-top vehicle, clutching a huge bouquet of flowers. She is flanked by mounted police. Slightly bewildered by all the attention,

she waves as the crowds chant her name and throw their straw hats in the air in their delight to see this global superstar. The reaction is hardly surprising. There has been media mania about her flight. Her name and picture are on every newspaper. She is young, striking, and glamorous. The front-page headline of the New York Times reads, Amelia Earhart flies Atlantic, first woman to do it. Tells her own story of perilous 21-hour trip.

Radio quit, and they flew blind over invisible ocean. The New Britain Herald reports Amelia Earhart is first girl to cross Atlantic. The San Francisco Chronicle carries a photograph of the returning hero in her leather flight helmet under the heading Aviatrix. She's even invited to the White House to meet President Calvin Coolidge. By the end of the year, she publishes a book about her

famous flight called 20 Hours and 40 Minutes. She becomes the first aviation columnist of Cosmopolitan Magazine. Her new range of functional fashions for active women is stocked in the stylish department store Macy's. And there are numerous celebrity endorsements, including Lucky Strike cigarettes, even though Amelia herself doesn't smoke and the habit is seen as unladylike. But her androgynous and courageous image appeals to both men and women. Her name is also stamped on a line of unisex leather suitcases designed for airline travelers. also stamped on a line of unisex leather suitcases designed for airline travelers. The Modenaire Airheart luggage captures the spirit of the age, marketed to rakish globetrotters who embrace the opportunities for high-speed adventure offered by air travel.

Suddenly, the name Amelia Earhart is a brand. Luckily, the celebrity endorsements helped to fund her flying ambitions. On July 5, 1930, she sets a new speed trial record of 181 miles per hour in a single-engine Lockheed Vega racer. in a single-engine Lockheed Vega racer. A year later, she achieves another altitude record, flying to 18,000 feet in a Pitcairn Auto Gyro. The Pitcairn is an ungainly-looking aircraft with a rotary blade strapped to an open cockpit chassis, a predecessor to the modern helicopter. Each act of daring establishes Amelia Earhart

as the bravest woman in the world. Technological advancements mean that aircraft themselves are also progressing. In 1932, Earhart buys a scarlet-colored Lockheed Vega that she calls her Little Red Bus. It has an enclosed cockpit, high wing, and paint with a glossy shine of lacquer. The speedy Vegas are prized as racing aircraft, but they can also cope with long distances. In fact, it's the model used by another pilot

to scientifically prove the existence of the jet stream, the air current that flows west to east around the globe. But on May 20, 1932, Amelia sets off in her little red bus to fly 2,000 miles from Newfoundland to Paris across the Atlantic. Veering off course after a 15-hour flight, she lands in a field in Northern Ireland the following day. She is greeted by a delighted family of farmers who offer the famous aviatrix a meal when they notice that she has no luggage, food, or even any money. She has only the clothes she stands in. Earhart is now the first woman to fly solo and non-stop across the Atlantic. She is only the

second person to achieve the feat after Charles Lindbergh's famous crossing of 1927. Again, Earhart returns home to much celebration. She receives a gold medal from the National Geographic Society and the Distinguished Flying Cross from the U.S. Congress. She was a spokesperson for her generation. She took that very seriously. And, you know, as far as self-esteem goes, five years to the day after Lindbergh's flight, she was the second person to solo the Atlantic. She did that because first time she said she felt like a sack of potatoes because she'd just been sitting in the plane while the pilots, who never actually got the attention that she did.

And people don't realize it, but after Lindbergh, many people, men and women, tried to follow him and be the second person to fly the Atlantic solo. And so there were deaths. And she very efficiently, very carefully flew, having planned as much as anybody could plan in those days for any eventuality. She always was a leader. And so she decided that she was going to spend her life pushing aviation and pushing women. By this time, she's getting married. She's marrying the man who published her books because she's also a writer. She was just such a multi-talented person. because she's also a writer.

She was just such a multi-talented person. But in her personal life, as well as her public life, Amelia is a maverick. Shortly before her wedding to the divorced publisher George Putnam, Amelia writes him a letter outlining her concept of marriage. It is far from romantic. She confesses that she is reluctant to marry in case it affects her career, and she promises not to hold her husband to what she refers to as a medieval code of faithfulness.

The letter ends with her request for a trial period. If marriage doesn't please them both, they will split up after a year. Perhaps Amelia's strident views come as no surprise to her fiancé. After all, Putnam had to propose six times before she accepted. Whatever he makes of the letter, the couple are finally married in 1931, though Amelia doesn't take his name. Already her publisher, Putnam becomes Amelia's publicity manager, and she thrives in her new role of aviation pioneer and spokesperson. He booked her into venues basically all winter, which paid her a huge amount of money. And then she'd fly in the summer, because in those years

they couldn't fly in bad weather. So her life would be lecturing and flying. And in lecturing, she had two themes, basically. She pushed flying because everybody was still afraid of flying. And then she pushed the role of women just as strongly as she pushed flying. And the more she pushed the role of women and the possibilities that women could accomplish great things or just small things, she pushed the themes that women should go to college, that they should possibly be educated before they got married, so that they could contribute to their husbands' lives rather than to just be mothers. just be mothers. Amelia shares a common interest in both flying and feminism with a powerful ally, the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt. They first meet at a presidential dinner.

Soon, the famous aviatrix is a regular guest at the White House. On April the 20th, 1933, Earhart and her husband, George Putnam, are dining once again at the White House. Amelia has put aside her usual slacks and leather flying jacket for more stylish evening attire. She looks chic in a steel-colored dress with a claret bow tied at the neck. Eleanor wears a monochrome shift with a white collar. The two women sit side by side. The president is away, but there are several high-profile aviation officials in attendance, including the head of the Eastern Air Transport Company. Over dinner, talk is mainly about flying. Eleanor Roosevelt has been taking lessons and has recently gained a student's pilot license. As they finish their main course and the staff clear the table,

Amelia suggests they go for a trip right now. She says the city looks beautiful at night. So the women throw on their fur coats and order a car to drive them to Hoover Field Airport. A plane belonging to their fellow supper guests waits on the tarmac. There are two company aviators on board. Protocol says they should fly the First Lady, but Amelia manages to get in the pilot's seat. She flies them as far as Baltimore, and Eleanor even takes a turn at the controls. They land back at Washington in time for the Secret Service to return them to the White House for dessert.

Everybody used to get very dressed up in those days. So there is actually a picture of them in their evening dresses. And Amelia arranged that Eleanor would have a flight at night, which she'd never done before. And so they went up in this gorgeous airplane, which because Amelia had arranged everything so perfectly as usual, although it was so casually. So she took the controls for a while, and then she gave the controls over to Eleanor. So Eleanor flew the plane for a while, and it was a gorgeous night, and Eleanor had a wonderful time.

And it got a great deal of publicity. I think the publicity was the best part of it because what they both wanted was to promote women flying eleanor actually adored amelia she asked her to stay many times the night flight with eleanor roosevelt is typical of the kind of stunt pulled by amelia erhart to promote women in aviation in a later newspaper interview the first lady comments that it marks an epoch when a girl in evening dress and slippers can pilot a plane at night. Amelia puts the promotion of women in the burgeoning aviation industry front and center of her work. She is a founding member of the 99s, an organization set up to support women pilots.

Of course, when they vote for their first president in 1930, it is Amelia Earhart who wins the ballot and becomes their figurehead. She proves herself an enthusiastic advocate, advancing not only her own career, but that of other women. In 1934, when a high-profile race in California bans women from competing, she refuses to attend the competition. She won't even pilot the plane carrying the screen actress Mary Pickford, who is due to open the event.

But Amelia does relocate to California in that same year. When her husband takes a job in the flourishing movie industry at Paramount Pictures, Amelia seizes the opportunity to train with Hollywood stunt flyers to improve her skills. By now, she has her sights set on the ultimate prize. Amelia Earhart wants to be the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. She thought of it in terms of, this is going to be a shining adventure to go around the world. And she had this beautiful Electra with the only other individual in the world who had one was Howard Hughes. It was a plane that was very popular with the airlines.

Actually, one of the first commercial passenger planes. And she was going to do it at the equator, which had never been done before. And this was sort of not unusual in those years to do a record flight like this. When she was a child, she had created this game at her grandparents' barn in Atchison, where they'd all sit in an abandoned horse carriage,

and they would imagine that they were flying all over the world. And for her, this was sort of a replication of her childhood dream. And there was another reason why she wanted to do this flight then. She was 39, and she wanted to do this before she was 40, and then she was going to hang up her wings. In early 1936, Earhart starts to plan her round-the-world adventure in earnest. Although other pilots have circled the globe,

hers will be the longest route at 29,000 miles. It is a treacherous journey, even carried out in stages, including long stretches across the Pacific. As well as the technological requirements of an aircraft that can cope with the conditions, there is also the challenge of navigation with rudimentary instruments. She co-opts a military hero, Captain Harry Manning, to join her crew. As a master mariner, Manning is an expert navigator.

But on practice runs over land, Earhart matches visible landmark marks with Manning's calculations and finds that he frequently veers off course. So she brings on board a second expert, Fred Noonan, who is also a sea captain and flight navigator. Noonan recently quit the airline Pan Am, for whom he plotted commercial air routes across the Pacific. By March 1937, her team is ready. The first stage of the journey, from Oakland in California to Honolulu in Hawaii, goes without a hitch. With the world watching, Amelia Earhart's greatest challenge gets underway. gets underway.

It is March the 20th, 1937. A beautiful tropical morning on Ford Island, an airstrip in the center of Pearl Harbor, the US Navy facility in Hawaii. Amelia Earhart and her crew sit in their twin-engine Lockheed Electra, ready for takeoff. This is the largest of her record-breaking aircraft. It's large enough to be used as a commercial airliner, but has been kitted out as a mobile laboratory to take scientific readings during the journey. They have 29,000 miles ahead of them and are impatient to get moving. They have 29,000 miles ahead of them and are impatient to get moving. A crowd of servicemen and civilians gather to watch the historic moment. The famous aviatrix Amelia Earhart is almost on her way.

There is a jovial atmosphere. The tarmac is slick from an overnight downpour. With Amelia at the controls, the Electra taxis to the northeast end of the island and turns at the head of the runway. The crowd falls quiet as the powerful engines rev up to full power. The aircraft accelerates down the runway. But even from a distance, the spectators can see immediately that something is wrong. The plane drifts to the right. There are gasps as it overcorrects, swerves, and tilts onto its right-hand landing gear.

One wing touches the runway, flipping the Electra into a spin known as a ground loop. The weight is too much for the single landing gear to take, and there is a crunch of metal as it collapses. The Electra skids on its nose, sending a shower of sparks onto the grass. Onlookers stream forward as Amelia and her two crew members climb out. She is unhurt, and the plane is salvageable. But her first attempt at circumnavigation of the globe ends in disappointment. Amelia Earhart is a pragmatic woman who does not believe in omens. Three months later,

she is ready to try again in the same aircraft. The Lockheed Electra is repaired. But her navigator, Captain Harry Manning, has left the team because of the delay. He was the only one of the three to understand Morse code, a key skill for radio communications. But they must go on without him. It turned out to be a crucial moment, but the navigator she had with her was very well regarded and had been one of Pan Am's top navigators. There were radio problems continually, and they had to be fixed. They could always be fixed, but the power would go out. All of a sudden, a control tower would say to her, why didn't you let us know you were

coming? And she would reply, I did, but you didn't get my radio communication. So there were electric problems with the plane from the beginning. Little things were always going wrong with radios and everything else. She had one of the first radio direction finders, by the way, which was a navigation instrument, which should have done better than it did. At 6 a.m. on May the 21st, 1937, Amelia Earhart is on the runway in Miami. She wears her trademark trousers and short-sleeved shirt,

but leaves off the leather jacket in the tropical heat. Photographers call her name as she boards the Lockheed Electra. Ever the consummate media player, she waves and smiles, making sure the newspapers get a good shot. But she is impatient to get going. Taking her seat in the cockpit, she can still hear the hubbub outside. As she gets settled, her husband leans into the cockpit from his perch on the wing. Their kiss goodbye is accompanied by the rapid fire sound of cameras. Despite her initial reluctance and rumors of the occasional romantic interest outside their

marriage, Amelia's relationship with Putnam is strong. They clutch hands for a moment, then she gets to business. Pre-flight checks in order, Amelia accelerates down the runway before lifting off easily into the sunrise. This time, the Electra gets away without incident. Amelia and Fred Noonan fly overland as much as possible. They make several short hops across the United States and the Caribbean and on to South America. Careful to take the shortest possible Atlantic crossing, they fly from Brazil to Senegal in West Africa. Then they skip eastwards across Mali, Chad, and Ethiopia.

Crossing to India, they are delayed by monsoon rains before flying island to island through Indonesia. Here, Amelia catches dysentery and is forced to rest for several days. When she is recovered, they fly on to Darwin in Australia and cross water again to Ley in New Guinea. They've covered almost 20,000 miles in 40 days with 20 stops. Now they are approaching the end of their challenge. There are only three flights left to make, but the next leg is the toughest. It is the longest over-water section of the route.

Before she sets off, Amelia writes home to her husband. Please know that I am aware of the hazards, she says. I want to do it because 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 early on july the 2nd Erhardt and Noonan depart from Ley. The cockpit is stuffy and humid as they roar down the runway to the now familiar sound of the Electra's powerful engines. They lift off and bank steeply, glancing down at the jungle below them, bidding farewell to the continent of Oceania. Then Amelia levels her wings and heads east over open water.

They are headed to Howland Island, an uninhabited coral atoll in the middle of the Pacific, a journey of 2,224 miles. It should take around 20 hours nonstop. The sky is overcast but calm, not ideal for celestial navigation. But Noonan also uses a method known as dead reckoning. It means that every hour on the hour, he computes several variables, including velocity, direction, and wind speed. Amid the vast expanse of ocean, he has to find a strip of land that is one mile wide and one and a half miles long.

For her part, Amelia keeps a close eye on their fuel. They have enough for 24 hours. Not much margin for error if they can't find their landing place. The pair fly in companionable silence. They check each other's work. Sometimes Amelia whistles a tune that makes Noonan smile. They watch the ocean roll beneath them like a vast grey carpet. When Amelia feels weary, she takes a bite of chocolate to perk herself up. After some eighteen hours, the endlessly monochrome view has become mesmerizing, but there's no sign of land. Amelia rubs her eyes, dazzled by the white glare of cloud.

Celia rubs her eyes, dazzled by the white glare of cloud. She glances at Noonan, who is poring over his maps and calculations. He's very quiet. They should have seen the island by now. The radio on board the Electra is capable of broadcasting a few hundred miles, perhaps more if the atmospheric conditions are right. Stationed off Howland Island is a United States Coast Guard vessel called the Itasca. As a personal friend of the Roosevelt's and America's most famous aviator,

Amelia has the full support of the Navy. Its radio operators are on alert, ready to guide the Electra to the target destination. She picks up her radio and makes the first of numerous calls for help. At 7.42 am local time, the operator on board the Itasca hears a woman's voice on their designated frequency. It can only be Amelia Earhart.

We must be on you, she says, but cannot see you. Gas is running low. Have been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at 1,000 feet. There is excitement on the Itasca as the operator sends a response. But the frequency falls silent again. For over an hour, the crew of the Itasca can only wait. At 8.43 a.m., the operator hears her give a heading with compass bearings For over an hour, the crew of the Itasca can only wait. At 8.43 a.m., the operator hears her give a heading with compass bearings that should mean they are on track for the atoll.

But she also says she will switch frequency. It is clear that she is not receiving their messages. The captain of the Itasca orders the crew to send up a flare from its engines. The ship emits a cloud of thick, black smoke that rises high into the sky like a homing beacon. At a thousand feet, Earhart and Noonan should see it from miles away. The radio operator keeps sending messages and Morse code directions, but he never hears Amelia's voice again. The last time they heard from her was 20 hours and 14 minutes into the flight. I mean, that's a long time in the air.

This is Amelia's message. This is the last thing that she said. We are on the line of position 157-337. We'll repeat this message on 6210 kilocycles. We are now running north and south. That's the last thing they heard from her. And the thing is that their radio was not picking up the line that it should have. And they were not hearing all of the messages that the Itasca

was sending and they were sending like crazy. She never got them. She never got them. And then the other thing which is that the Itasca reported that the sea was smooth and the ceiling unlimited. The Itasca was sending up a plume of smoke. They never saw it. So they couldn't have been even that near the island. Amelia Earhart is reported missing by the Itasca. President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders a search and rescue mission on an unprecedented scale. The U.S. Navy and Coast Guard scour hundreds of thousands of square miles of ocean at a cost of $4 million. Ships visit nearby atolls and uninhabited islands, looking for signs of castaways or plane wrecks. Then to a waiting world came news of disaster as the plane failed to reach tiny Howland Island in the Pacific.

A British freighter, the Coast Guard, and the Navy sped to the search, the battleship Colorado steaming out from Honolulu under forced draft. From California, the aircraft carrier Lexington, with 3,000 men and 72 planes aboard, races into the distant Pacific to join the greatest searching party in the history of aviation. But there is no sign of the Lockheed Electra or its crew. Back in the United States, the front pages of the newspapers lament the loss of America's sweetheart.

There is an outpouring of grief and emotion. Just over two weeks later, on July the 19th, the sea search is called off. Two weeks later, on July the 19th, the sea search is called off. A Coast Guard investigation concludes that Earhart and Noonan lost their way, failed to locate Howland Island, and ditched into the Pacific when they ran out of fuel. Eighteen months later, Amelia Earhart is pronounced dead by her husband, so that he is able to take control of her estate. But alternative theories about her whereabouts surface almost at once, even on the day she

disappears in July 1937. Radio listeners on ships in the Pacific or in coastal regions claim that a woman's voice was heard in the hours and days after her disappearance. Some of these reports are dismissed as hoaxes or atmospheric anomalies, but some are more convincing. They lead hopeful friends and fans to fear that Amelia is stranded on a desert island. Her so-called distress calls are reported mostly at night, and end abruptly on July 13, 11 days after the supposed crash. The theory is that the Electra could have strayed far off course and landed at Nicomororo,

an atoll 350 nautical miles from Howland Island. Stranded on a coral reef, the plane and its radio would only have been accessible at low tide, mostly during nighttime hours when the broadcasts are heard. Nikumuroro Atoll becomes a hotspot for those who continue to believe and investigate the castaway theory. In 1940, a British expedition finds bones on the island. There is a dispute over whether the remains were male or female or even human. But the bones are shipped to doctors in Fiji, recorded, and subsequently lost. Recent researchers have used the measurements taken in 1940 to conclude that the bones matched

an individual of the same height as Earhart. The fact that they were said to have been found next to a bivouac campsite on Nikumororo backs the argument that Amelia survived as long as she could on an uninhabited island. But there's no conclusive evidence of this theory, and one major discrepancy is that no wreckage from a crashed plane has ever been found at Nakumaroro. A second hypothesis veers into the realm of conspiracy theory, no doubt fueled by the political insecurities of the interwar period. Amelia Earhart's friendship with the Roosevelts lead some to believe that she was a spy who conveniently disappeared in 1937. Thirty years later, a journalist published a book claiming that the pilot was alive and living under a new secret identity in New Jersey,

where she had reinvented herself as a successful banker called Irene Bolum. The real Irene Bolum sued the publisher in the 1980s, and the claims were dismissed by modern forensic experts. Another conspiracy theory suggests that Earhart crashed in territory held by the Japanese, such as the Marshall Islands, who then executed the American. But anti-Japanese sentiment was rife in America in the late 1930s, when the Imperial Army was expanding aggressively in the Pacific Theater. Again, there is no concrete evidence of Japanese involvement in Earhart's death. But this remains one of the most persistent ideas. As recently as 2017, a photograph was unearthed that claimed to show

Earhart and Fred Noonan sitting on a dockside in the Japanese-occupied Marshall Islands. But there is no date, no identity, and no sign of soldiers in Japanese uniform to add credibility to this interpretation of the picture. The most likely resolution to the mystery is the original and simplest explanation. That the Electra simply ran out of fuel and ditched into the vast ocean. Even if Erhardt and Noonan survived

a crash landing on water, locating them would have been like looking for one grain of sand in the middle of a desert. In the 85 years since Amelia Earhart disappeared, there has been no shortage of people willing to search for her crash site. George Putnam paid civilian salvage crews to comb the seas around Howland in the months after his wife's disappearance. They found no trace. after his wife's disappearance. They found no trace. More recently, in 2019, the explorer Bob Ballard, who was part of the team that found the wreck of the Titanic, undertook an extensive search. Also, to no avail.

The considerable depth of the ocean around Howland poses a challenge for salvage crews. The depth of the ocean around Howland poses a challenge for salvage crews. But as deep-sea technology improves, it also offers a ray of hope. At depths of up to 17,000 feet, the water is so lacking in oxygen that any metal debris that is ever located is likely to be well preserved. Perhaps, as ocean exploration continues, the mystery will one day be solved. Amelia Earhart died a month before her 40th birthday. Her life was short, but packed full of adventure. She set countless world records, feats of daring and imagination,

and inspired a generation of female flyers, including the First Lady of the United States. And her story of independence continues to motivate today. The woman behind the legend, as far as I'm concerned, was a very reasonable human being who was suddenly thrust on the world, thrust in a position of power and influence, and is one of the few people in the world who used her power and influence in a very positive way. She keeps my faith in human nature alive next time on short history of will bring you a short history of stonehenge the thing about stonehenge why it is is iconic, why it is recognisable all around the world,

and you find it on everything from Japanese phone cards to Superman comics to adverts, you know, everything. It all comes down to the fact that it's got horizontal lintels on the top. Because if Stonehenge, if you think about it, if it had just been a series of uprights, no matter how beautifully shaped, it wouldn't have been recognisable, would it? But all you need to do is just put two things upright, one across the top, and it's instantly recognisable. That's next time on Short History Of.