Amelia Earhart

A seasoned pilot, Amelia Earhart readily consented in 1928 to travel as a passenger on a transatlantic flight. Upon emerging from the plane in Wales, she was catapulted to overnight fame as the first woman to fly the Atlantic, and she soon became the leading female spokesperson for America's infant aviation industry. Four years later, her reputation took a quantum leap when she piloted a solo flight across the Atlantic.

Here, Earhart is perched in the unfinished fuselage of the Lockheed Electra in which she intended to circle the globe. That journey began on June 1, 1937, when Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, took off from Florida. By mid-month they were in India, where she phoned her husband to tell him what a fine time she was having. Unfortunately, some two weeks later, her plane disappeared over the South Pacific, never to be heard from again.