Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart broke barriers and set records even before she set out on her round-the-world flight in 1937. 

Earhart left college to work at a Canadian military hospital during World War I, where she met aviators and became intrigued with flying. After the war, she continued to follow her passion for flying and took lessons with Neta Snook — another pioneering woman in aviation. Earhart purchased a Kinner Airster biplane, which she used in 1922 to set the women’s altitude record of 14,000 feet, according to the National Women’s History Museum. 

Earhart earned public notoriety in 1928 after she was asked by publicist George Putnam, whom she would later marry, to become the first woman to cross the Atlantic by plane. She did so as a passenger, but the buzz her journey created led to literary success; Putnam published two of her books in the following years. 

Earhart continued to set records: She was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic as a pilot in 1932. She was the second person, after Charles Lindbergh, to fly nonstop and alone across the Atlantic, according to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. 

She set off to become the first woman to fly around the world, leaving from Miami with navigator Fred Noonan, on June 1, 1937. With fewer than 7,000 miles to go, her plane lost radio contact somewhere around the Howland Island. She was never found despite searches that continued for decades. 

— Rebecca Klar

photo: Getty Images