50 Amelia and Eleanor's Excellent Adventure

Scattered Curiosities

Did President Franklin Delano Roosevelt have Amelia Earhart shot down over the Pacific during a “reconnaissance” mission in retaliation for her lesbian affairs with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt? Probably not, but if you nit-picked your facts, you might be able to construct a plausible explanation to support that theory; we are not the first to suggest it, by the way. Today’s narrative was built around the 1933 evening when Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt ducked out of a party at the White House to take a spontaneous flight to Baltimore. The two would forever be associated with aviation, Amelia (for obvious reasons) and Eleanor for travelling over 40,000 miles as First Lady of the United States. Despite their thirteen-year difference, the two had much more in common than air travel. Both taught, wrote books, endorsed products for sponsors, fought for civil rights and refused to take their husbands’ last names; a technicality for Eleanor who’d always been a Roosevelt but Amelia suggested her husband, George Putnam, should, perhaps, be called Mr. Earhart. Put your seat tray up and buckle-in for Amelia and Eleanor’s Excellent Adventure.