May 21st

On this date in 1932 Amelia Earhart landed in Derry, Northern Ireland to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, five years to the day after Lindberg’s flight. She became an inspiration to the world who followed her adventures closely. She helped promote women aviators and became a professor at Purdue University in Indiana. It was on a Purdue sponsored round-the-world flight that she disappeared in 1937. Her firm belief in women’s equality applied to her own marriage to her publicist, George Putnam. She referred to the marriage as a “partnership”  having “dual controls.” In a letter to her husband on their wedding day she wrote “I want you to understand I shall not hold you to any midaevil