Google is celebrating what would have been the 115th birthday of Amelia Earhart, who became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic in 1932. The search engine replaced its official logo on its home page with a Doodle of a Lockheed Vega 5b. Earhart flew the plane from Newfoundland in Canada in Culmore in Northern Ireland on her first solo trip.
Earhart later became known for her disappearance in 1937 over the Pacific Ocean near Howland Island. The pilot disappeared as she tried to fly across the world. No traces of her or the aircraft she was flying at the time, a Lockheed Model 10 Electra, were ever found.
Born in Kansas on July 24, 1897, Earhart didn’t fly until she was 23. “By the time I got two or three hundred feet off the ground I knew I had to fly,” Earhart said of her experience flying over Long Beach, California.
With two years, Earhart was setting records in female aviation. However, financial difficulties hampered her ambition. But the U.S. press had become so impressed by Earhart that they began calling her Lady Lindy, saying she looked like aviator Charles Lindbergh.
The Doodle comes as The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery led a $2.2 million expedition in Hawaii to find the Lockheed Model 10 Electra. However, the researchers were unable to find the remains.
Written by: Karen Benardello
