Mayor Walker with Amelia Earhart at a reception at City Hall (Photo via MCNY)
As you may have learned through today's Google Doodle, Amelia Earhart would have turned 115 years old today. Earhart vanished 75 years ago while flying with her navigator Fred Noonan from New Guinea to Howland Island—and in March of this year a new search was launched on the remote island of Nikumaroro, where it's believed Earhart and Noonan survived for a short time. Nothing turned up in the search, which was called off last week.
Nikumaroro, 1600 miles s. of Hawaii, where it is thought that aviatrix Amelia Earhart's plane is submerged. Photo via LIFE, ca. 1991
In 1928, Earhart had just attained "overnight stardom" after becoming the first woman passenger on a trans-Atlantic flight, but she stated, “Stultz did all the flying... I was just baggage, like a sack of potatoes. Maybe someday I'll try it alone.” The aviation pioneer was honored four years later in New York City with a ticker tape parade on June 20th, 1932 after becoming the first woman pilot to make a solo trans-Atlantic crossing—here is footage of that event (and there's more here):
