On July 2, 1937, the Lockheed aircraft carrying American aviator
Amelia Earhart and navigator Frederick Noonan is reported
missing near Howland Island in the Pacific.
The pair were attempting to fly around the world when they lost
their bearings during the most challenging leg of the global journey:
Lae, New Guinea, to Howland Island, a tiny island 2,227 nautical
miles away, in the center of the Pacific Ocean.
Sally Kristen Ride (May 26, 1951 – July 23, 2012)
On June 18, 1983, the space shuttle Challenger was launched
into space on its second mission. On board the shuttle is Dr.
Sally K. Ride, who as a mission specialist, became the first
American woman to travel into space.
Ride, who had earlier pursued a professional tennis career,
answered a newspaper ad in 1977 from NASA calling for
young tech-savvy scientists who could work as mission
specialists. She died of pancreatic cancer at age 61.
Presidential Medal of Freedom
(2013, posthumous)
On June 3, 1965, 120 miles above the Earth, Major Edward H.
White II opened the hatch of the Gemini 4 and steps out of the
capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to walk in
space. Attached to the craft by a 25-foot tether and controlling
his movements with a hand-held oxygen jet-propulsion gun,
White remained outside the capsule for just over 20 minutes.
White had been preceded by Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei A.
Leonov, who on March 18, 1965, was the first man ever to
walk in space.
Edward Higgins White II
(November 14, 1930 – January 27, 1967
The body of aviation hero Charles Lindbergh’s baby was found
on May 12, 1932, more than two months after he was kidnapped
from his family’s Hopewell, New Jersey, mansion.
Lindbergh, who became the first worldwide celebrity five years
earlier when he flew The Spirit of St. Louis across the Atlantic,
and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh discovered a ransom note
in their 20-month-old child’s empty room on March 1.
The kidnapper had used a ladder (below) to climb up to the open
second-floor window and had left muddy footprints in the room.
In barely legible English, the ransom note (below) demanded
$50,000. The crime captured the attention of the entire nation.
Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
On April 8, 1993, the space shuttle Discovery lifted off from
the Kennedy Space Center. On board was astronaut Ellen
Ochoa, soon to become the first Hispanic woman in space.
Ochoa started at NASA in 1988 after receiving a doctorate
in electrical engineering from Stanford University. Two
years later, she was selected as an astronaut.
