Amelia Earhart Flies To Fame

Today In History with The Retrospectors

Aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart became the first woman to cross the Atlantic by air on June 18th, 1928… but on this occasion didn’t actually fly the plane; she was a passenger aboard the Friendship, a three-engine seaplane piloted by Wilmer Stultz and co-piloted by Louis Gordon.

Originally, a wealthy heiress was meant to take the flight, but her family vetoed it as too dangerous. So Earhart, smart, skilled, and camera-ready, was chosen to be “Lady Lindy”, and that one journey launched her into the stratosphere of fame. She wrote a book, became a Cosmopolitan editor, endorsed everything from cigarettes to watches, and even launched her own fashion line.

In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly revisit Earhart’s iconic joyrides, including the one alongside Eleanor Roosevelt; consider the impact of her work to elevate women pilots, given that 95% of pilots are still men; and speculate about one of aviation’s greatest mysteries: what happened to her plane on the day she went missing?

Further Reading:

• ‘BBC - Wales History: Amelia Earhart flies the Atlantic’ (BBC Wales, 2010): https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/waleshistory/2010/05/amelia_earhart_flies_the_atlantic.html

• ‘Amelia Earhart Facts: 24 Fascinating Things You Should Know’ (All Thats Interesting, 2017): https://allthatsinteresting.com/amelia-earhart-facts

• ‘Mystery solved? Explorer thinks he found Amelia Earhart's lost plane’ (NBC, 2024): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DqU8LaL-L0

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