IMPORTANT WOMEN. AMELIA EARHART, FAMOUS FLIER, LEFT, AND MRS. FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT PHOTOGRAPHED AS THEY APPROACHED THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY WHERE THE CONQUORER OF THE ATLANTIC AND THE PACIFIC BY AIR ADDRESSED THE MEMBERS

Amelia Earhart was a pioneering American aviator and the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She was born on July 24, 1897, in Atchison, Kansas, and began her flying career in the 1920s. Earhart set many records for women pilots and was a member of the American Aeronautical Society and the National Women's Party. She disappeared while attempting to fly around the world in 1937 and is believed to have died in a plane crash over the Pacific Ocean. Defying conventional feminine behavior, a young Earhart climbed trees, "belly slammed" her sled to start it downhill, and hunted rats with a .22 rifle. She also kept a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about successful women in predominantly male-oriented fields, including film direction and production, law, advertising, management, and mechanical engineering. After graduating from Hyde Park High School in 1915, Earhart attended Ogontz, a girl's finishing school in the suburbs of Philadelphia. She left in the middle of her second year to work as a nurse's aide in a military hospital in Canada during WWI, attended college, and later became a social worker at Denison House, a settlement house in Boston. 19-year-old Amelia Mary Earhart attended a stunt-flying exhibition. A pilot spotted Earhart and her friend, who were watching from an isolated clearing, and dove at them. "I am sure he said to himself, 'Watch me make them scamper... I did not understand it at the time, but I believe that little red airplane said something to me as it swished by." On December 28, 1920, pilot Frank Hawks gave her a ride that would forever change her life. "By the time I had got two or three hundred feet off the ground, I knew I had to fly." Earhart took her first flying lesson on January 3, 1921. In six months, managed to save enough money to buy her first plane. The second-hand Kinner Airster was a two-seater biplane painted bright yellow—Earhart named her newest obsession "The Canary" and used it to set her first women's record by rising to an altitude of 14,000 feet. Amelia Mary Earhart was the first aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She received the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross for this record and set many aviation records. She 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 to make a circumnavigational flight of the globe in 1937 in a Purdue-funded Lockheed Model 10 Electra, Earhart disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean near Howland Island. Fascination with her life, career, and disappearance continues to this day.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945), commonly known as FDR, served as the 32nd President of the United States, from 1933 to 1945. Roosevelt was born in 1882, to a prominent Dutch family from Dutchess County, New York. He attended the elite Groton School and Harvard College. He married Eleanor Roosevelt, with whom he had six children. Roosevelt fought with polio since 1921. He entered politics in 1910, serving in the New York State Senate, and then as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson. In 1920, Roosevelt ran for vice president with presidential candidate James M. Cox, but lost to the Republican ticket. He successfully ran for Governor of New York in 1928. In 1932 Roosevelt successfully defeated Republican president Herbert Hoover to win the presidency of the United States. In his first hundred days in office, Roosevelt initiated an unprecedented legislation and issued a number of executive orders that instituted the New Deal programs. He created numerous programs supporting the unemployed and farmers, encouraged labor union growth while more closely regulating business and Wall street finance. The repeal of Prohibition in 1933 helped FDR to win re-election in 1936. The economy improved rapidly from 1933 to 1937 but then relapsed into a deep recession in 1937–38. As World War II loomed after 1938, with the Japanese invasion of China and the aggression of Nazi Germany, Roosevelt gave strong diplomatic and financial support to China and the United Kingdom, while remaining officially neutral. His goal was to make America the "Arsenal of Democracy", which would supply munitions to the Allies. In March 1941, Roosevelt, with Congressional approval, provided Lend-Lease aid to Britain and China. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, United States declared war on Japan and, a few days later, on Germany. During the war, unemployment dropped to 2%, relief programs largely ended, and the industrial economy grew rapidly to new heights as millions of people moved to wartime factory jobs or entered military service. Roosevelt supervised the mobilization of the U.S. economy. As an active military leader, he implemented a war strategy on two fronts that ended in the defeat of the Axis Powers and the development of the world's first nuclear bomb. His work also influenced the later creation of the United Nations and Bretton Woods. Roosevelt's health seriously declined during the war years, and he died three months into his fourth term. "If you treat people right they will treat you right... ninety percent of the time."

Élisabeth Thible flew above Lyon, France in 1784. Jeanne Labrosse became the first woman to parachute. Sophie Blanchard took her first balloon flight in 1804, and was made Napoleon's chief of air service in 1811. In 1903, Aida de Acosta, an American woman vacationing in Paris piloted airship, becoming the first known woman to pilot a motorized aircraft. Katharine Wright flew the Wright Model A. Emma Lilian Todd designed her own airplanes. Her first plane flew in 1910. Georgia "Tiny" Broadwick became the first woman to jump from an aircraft in 1913. Raymonde de Laroche, was the world's first licensed female pilot. Seven other French women followed her in 1901-1902. Blanche Scott claimed to be the first American woman to fly an airplane and established herself as a daredevil pilot. Bessica Raiche recognized as the first American woman to make a solo flight. Harriet Quimby became the USA's first licensed female pilot on August 1, 1911 and the first woman to cross the English Channel by airplane the following year. Lidia Zvereva, the first female Russian license performed her first aerobatic loop in 1914. In 1913, Lyubov Golanchikova signed a contract to become the first female test pilot to test "Farman-22" manufactured in Russia. In 1916, Zhang Xiahun (Chinese: 張俠魂) China's first female pilot crashed, becoming a national heroine when she survived. Katherine Stinson became the first woman air mail pilot, when the United States Postal Service. The following year, Ruth Law flew the first official U.S. air mail to the Philippines. In 1936, Hanna Reitsch of Germany became one of the first persons to fly a fully controllable helicopter and earned the first woman helicopter pilot's license. In 1937 Sabiha Gökçen of Turkey became the first trained woman combat pilot, participating in search operations and bombing flight. In 1943 Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) were flying new planes from factories to Army Air Force bases, worked as test pilots. In 1942 Soviet Union created an all-woman combat flight unit, the 588th Night-Bomber Air-Regiment or the Night Witches. They flew harassment and precision bombing missions and "dumped 23,000 tons of bombs on the German invaders". The Soviets also had the only women to be considered flying aces like Lydia Litvyak and Yekaterina Budanova.