Amelia Earhart was born in Atchison, Kansas. Her father was a lawyer and her grandfather a former federal judge, and leading citizen of Atchison.

From an early age, Amelia displayed a great sense of adventure and was often referred to as a ‘tomboy’. She enjoyed pursuits not common for girls of her age – such as shooting rats with a rifle, climbing trees and keeping wildlife such as worms and a tree toad. Her mother encouraged a greater freedom for her children that wasn’t common for the time. Her mother once commented that she didn’t believe in bringing up her children to be ‘nice little girls’. This spirit of relative freedom and adventure was a common trait throughout her life.

In 1909, Amelia and her sister joined her parents in Des Moines, Iowa, where her father was now working for the railroad company. Unfortunately, her father was diagnosed as an alcoholic, and later he lost his job. In 1915, the family moved to St Paul, Minnesota, before shortly having to move on again to Chicago.

In her young years, Amelia was educated at home. She was a keen reader and kept a scrapbook of women who had made significant achievements in fields that were at the time, primarily the preserve of men.

After moving to Chicago, Amelia tried to find a school with good science teaching, but she was disappointed by what was on offer, and her education proved a disappointment.

In 1917, she trained as a nurse and began volunteer work in the Spadina Military Hospital for wounded soldiers from the Western Front. In 1918, she contracted the Spanish flu, while working as a nurse in Toronto. It took her a year to recover and left her with chronic sinusitis, which adversely affected her flying.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗛𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗔𝗺𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗮 𝗘𝗮𝗿𝗵𝗮𝗿𝘁?

Earhart and Noonan departed Lae for tiny Howland Island—their next refueling stop—on July 2. It was the last time Earhart was seen alive. She and Noonan lost radio contact with the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca, anchored off the coast of Howland Island, and disappeared en route.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized a massive two-week search for the pair, but they were never found. On July 19, 1937, Earhart and Noonan were declared lost at sea.

Scholars and aviation enthusiasts have proposed many theories about what happened to Amelia Earhart. The official position from the U.S. government is that Earhart and Noonan crashed into the Pacific Ocean, but there are numerous theories regarding their disappearance.

Crash and Sink Theory

The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) postulates that Earhart and Noonan veered off-course from Howland Island and landed instead some 350 miles to the Southwest on Gardner Island, now called Nikumaroro, in the Republic of Kiribati. The island was uninhabited at the time.

A week after Earhart’s disappeared, Navy planes flew over the island. They noted recent signs of habitation but found no evidence of an airplane.

TIGHAR believes that Earhart—and perhaps Noonan—may have survived for days or even weeks on the island as castaways before dying there. Since 1988, several TIGHAR expeditions to the island have turned up artifacts and anecdotal evidence in support of this hypothesis.

Some of the artifacts include a piece of Plexiglas that may have come from the Electra’s window, a woman’s shoe dating back to the 1930s, improvised tools, a woman’s cosmetics jar from the 1930s and bones that appeared to be part of a human finger.

Other Theories About Earhart’s Disappearance

There are numerous conspiracy theories about Earhart’s disappearance. One theory posits that Earhart and Noonan were captured and executed by the Japanese.

Another theory claims that the pair served as spies for the Roosevelt administration and assumed new identities upon returning to the United States.