Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart was a pilot and adventurer from the United States.

Amelia Earhart was born on July 24^th, 1897 in Atchison, Kansas. When she was a child, Amelia and her sister liked to collect insects and frogs. They also liked to play sports like baseball and football.

At first, Amelia didn’t know what she wanted to do. In 1920, Amelia and her father visited an air show in California. She loved the planes, and she decided she wanted to be a pilot! She saved up for flying lessons and her own airplane. Soon, Amelia had her pilot’s license and set a new record for female pilots by going to 14,000 feet.

In 1928, Amelia flew across the Atlantic Ocean with two other pilots. She was the person who gave directions about where to go, or the navigator. After 21 hours of flying, the plane landed in Wales (a country in Europe). Amelia had become the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean!

Amelia wanted to keep flying, and she decided she wanted to fly across the Atlantic Ocean by herself. In 1932, she took off from Newfoundland. She was trying to make it to Paris, France.

The flight was very dangerous. There was bad weather, a lot of clouds, and sometimes her plane got covered in ice. Amelia did not make it all the way to Paris, but she landed in Ireland. Amelia became the second person and the first woman to fly all the way across the Atlantic Ocean alone. She received many awards, including the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Amelia kept flying. She broke many records and became the first person to fly alone from Hawaii to California. She wrote and gave speeches about flying and about women’s rights. Even though she was one of the most famous pilots in the world, Amelia wasn’t satisfied and wanted to be the first woman to fly around the world.

In 1937, Amelia and her navigator made many journeys. On July 2^nd, they took off from New Guinea to fly to Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean, but they were never seen again. The United States searched for them for weeks, but they were never found.