write 6 words to describe charles Lindbergh
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Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. At the age of 25 in 1927, he went from obscurity as a U.S. Air Mail pilot to instantaneous world fame by winning the Orteig Prize for making a nonstop flight from New York City to Paris. Lindbergh covered the 33 1⁄2-hour, 3,600-statute-mile (5,800 km) flight alone in a purpose-built, single-engine Ryan monoplane, the Spirit of St. Louis. Although not the first non-stop transatlantic flight, this was the first solo transatlantic flight, the first transatlantic flight between two major city hubs, and the longest transatlantic flight by almost 2,000 miles, thus it is widely considered a turning point in the development of aviation.
6 Fascinating Facts About Charles Lindbergh:
1. His father was a U.S. Congressman.
When Lindbergh was four years old, Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional District elected his father, Charles August Lindbergh, to the U.S. House of Representatives. The elder Lindbergh would serve five terms in Congress, where he won a reputation for his independent stances and fierce opposition to the Federal Reserve System. Congressman Lindbergh was among the few members of the House to speak out against U.S. involvement in World War I, and was later censored and accused of sedition after writing an anti-war pamphlet called “Why is Your Country at War?”
2. He worked as a daredevil and stunt pilot.
After learning to fly at the Nebraska Aircraft Corporation in Lincoln, Lindbergh spent two years years as an itinerant stuntman and aerial daredevil. During “barnstorming” excursions through the American heartland, the young aviator wowed audiences with daring displays of wing-walking, parachuting and mid-air plane changes. After purchasing his own plane, he became one of the nation’s top stunt pilots, often twisting his machine into complicated loops and spins or killing the engine at 3,000 feet and gliding to ground. Despite the hazardous nature of stunt flying, “Lucky Lindy’s” closest brushes with death would come during his time as a U.S. Army flier, test pilot and airmail pilot, when he survived a record four plane crashes by bailing out and parachuting to safety.
3. He wasn’t the first person to make a transatlantic crossing in an airplane.
In the years before Charles Lindbergh’s New York to Paris flight, dozens of other pioneering aviators completed airborne crossings of the Atlantic. Most made the journey in multiple stages or used lighter-than-air dirigibles, but in 1919, British pilots John Alcock and Arthur Brown famously flew nonstop from Newfoundland to Ireland in a Vickers Vimy biplane before crash landing in a bog. Lindbergh’s major achievement was not that he was the first person to cross the Atlantic by airplane, but rather that he did it alone and between two major international cities.
4. He experienced hallucinations and saw mirages during his famous flight.
Along with the perils of navigating the foggy Atlantic, Lindbergh’s biggest challenge during his transatlantic flight was simply staying awake. Between his pre-flight preparations and the 33.5-hour journey itself, he went some 55 hours without sleep. Lindbergh went so far as to buzz the surface of the ocean in the hope that the chilly sea spray would help keep him awake, but 24 hours into the journey, he became delirious from lack of rest. He later wrote of mirage-like “fog islands” forming in the sea below, and of seeing “vaguely outlined forms, transparent, moving, riding weightless with me in the plane.” Lindbergh even claimed the apparitions spoke to him and offered words of wisdom for his journey. The hallucinations eventually faded, and only a few hours later, the exhausted aviator landed in Paris to a crowd of more than 150,000 jubilant spectators.
5. He achieved several more “firsts” in aviation.
Lindbergh’s transcontinental crossing made him one of the most famous men in the world. He received millions of letters from adoring fans, rode in more than a thousand miles of parades and was even given the Medal of Honor. Still, it wasn’t long before the “The Lone Eagle” took back to the skies on another ambitious journey. In December 1927, he piloted “The Spirit of St. Louis” on a solo, non-stop flight from Washington D.C. to Mexico City as part of a goodwill tour of Latin America. While in Mexico, Lindbergh met Anne Morrow, the daughter of U.S. Ambassador Dwight Morrow, and the two married only a few months later. Anne later became Lindbergh’s trusted copilot and radio operator, and the couple made several groundbreaking flights, including a 1931 trip from the United States to Japan and China.
6. Gangster Al Capone offered to help find Lindbergh’s kidnapped baby.
On March 1, 1932, Lindbergh’s 20-month-old son, Charles Lindbergh, Jr., was mysteriously kidnapped from his home in New Jersey. The family received thousands of offers of assistance, including one from none other than “Scarface” himself—Al Capone. While waiting to be transferred to prison on charges of tax evasion, Capone released a statement offering the Lindberghs his condolences, saying, “I know how Mrs. Capone and I would feel if our son were kidnapped.” The gangster put up a $10,000 reward for information that would lead to the arrest of the perpetrators, and even proposed to use his criminal connections to help find the kidnappers in exchange for his release from jail. Lindbergh didn’t accept the offer, but he did work with other underworld figures who claimed they had information on the crime. The search would ultimately end in tragedy in May 1932, when the body of the murdered Lindbergh baby was found only a few miles from the family home.