Aviation pioneer Braveheart. Amelia Mary Earhart was an American aviation pioneer and author between 1897 and up to her disappearance on July 2, 1937. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many other records and was one of the first aviators to promote commercial air travel, wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences, and was instrumental in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots.

During an attempt at becoming the first woman to complete a circumnavigational flight of the globe in 1937 in a Purdue-funded Lockheed Model 10-E Electra, Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean near Howland Island. The two were last seen in Lae, New Guinea, on July 2, 1937, on the last land stop before Howland Island and one of their final legs of the flight. She presumably lost her life in the Pacific during the circumnavigation, just three weeks prior to her fortieth birthday