January 11 - Amelia Earhart Is First to Fly the Pacific Solo, 80 Years Ago

Amelia Earhart in the year she died. This photo is shown in
the small Air Museum in the Melbourne, Florida airport.

This day in 1935, Amelia Earhart was the first person to fly solo across the Pacific, from Honolulu to Oakland.

Her flight on a single-engine Lockheed Vega was routine. On her way in to Oakland she was listening on her radio to the broadcast of an opera from the Met in New York.

She had already at 34, in 1932, become the first  woman to fly the Atlantic solo.  Charles Lindbergh was the first person to make the crossing alone. She was called the female Lindy or "Queen of the Air".

She flew from Newfoundland to County Derry in Ireland. A puzzled farmer went out to see who landed on his property and asked: "Have you come far?" She answered: "From America."

Amelia Mary Earhart was born in Atchison, Kansas, daughter of Samuel "Edwin" Stanton Earhart (1867-1930) and Amelia "Amy" Otis Earhart (1869-1962).

She was married twice but did not take either husband's name. She was a member of the National Woman's Party. She disappeared in 1937 while trying to circumnavigate the globe in an airplane with new equipment.