Amelia Earhart
by Katie T.

Amelia Earhart was born on July 24,1897, in Atchison, Kansas. When Amelia was a kid, she was supposed to act like a young lady. But she didn't. She jumped over fences and she wore bloomers (loose pants) when she went out to play, instead of dresses with ruffled aprons. Amelia liked to play sports and games. She liked taking risks too.

When she was 11 she saw a plane for the first time. Although most people were exited, she thought it was just a piece of rusty wire and wood. After high school, Amelia became a nurse aide in Toronto, Canada to help the injured soldiers in World War I. After the war ended she went to study medicine in Columbia University, New York for a year. Then she went to Los Angeles, California for the summer. While she was there she saw an air show and rode an airplane for the first time. After the flight she knew she had to learn how to fly, so she went to ask Neta Snook, a flying teacher to teach her. Neta Snook agreed. She learned only on weekends, and she worked at a phone company on weekdays.

On her 24th birthday, she got her very own airplane from her mom and her sister. She started flying in air shows. In one air show she flew to 14,000 feet, higher than any woman had before. Then in 1924 she sold her airplane and bought a car. She and her mom moved to Medford, Massachusetts. One day in April 1928, she received an important call. It was from Captain Hilton Railey. He was asking if she wanted to go on a flight across the Atlantic Ocean as a passenger driven by two men in a plane called the Friendship. She said yes. On June 17, 1928 the Friendship took off in Newfoundland, Canada. Finally after 20 hours and 40 minutes the plane landed in Burry Port, Wales.

When she got to back to America, people asked her how it felt to be the first women to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. She replied "I was just baggage". Later, a publisher named George Palmer Putnam asked her to write a book about her flight. On February 7, 1931 she and George Palmer Putnam got married, after he asked her six times.
Amelia used the money she earned from her book to buy a new plane, a red Lockheed Vega. Then on May 20, 1932 she flew across the Atlantic Ocean alone from Newfoundland to Londonderry, Ireland. She was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean alone. A few months later, she flew from California to New Jersey in a little over nineteen hours. It was a new woman's record. In January 1935 she became the first person to cross the Pacific Ocean, by flying from Hawaii to California.

Amelia's last flight was to fly around the world. She took off on June 1, 1937.When she was flying above the Pacific Ocean, she got lost and she was running out of gas. Eventually, she had no more gas and she vanished. Amelia did not finish her last flight, but she showed people how to follow their dreams.