Amelia Earhart - Behind the News

It's one of the world's greatest mysteries. In July 1937, intrepid pilot Amelia Earhart set out on what she hoped would be her first solo flight around the world. But she disappeared. There are lots of theories about what actually happened, and we'll get to those. First, let's see where her amazing story began. Amelia grew up in America in the early 1900s. She hadn't always been interested in planes, but when she was about 23, she had her first ride in one, and she made up her mind then and there to become a pilot. In fact, she wrote in her diary at the time, By the time I'd got 200 or 300 feet off the ground, I knew I had to fly. In those days, women didn't have the same rights as men. They'd only just won the right to vote, and the idea of a woman piloting planes was pretty out there. But Amelia wasn't phased. She began flying lessons, and a few years later, became the 16th woman in America to get her pilot licence. In 1928, she became the first woman ever to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. The trip lasted nearly 15 hours, and she had to contend with strong winds, icy conditions, and a bunch of mechanical problems along the way. And Amelia's achievements didn't stop there. Before long, she found herself a major celebrity. She kept breaking flight records, became a best-selling writer, and an activist for women's rights. In July 1937, she set off on her attempt to fly all the way around the globe. But on her longest leg of the journey, somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, her radio messages stopped, and that was the last anyone heard from her. Many people believe her plane crashed and still lies somewhere on the ocean floor. But there is another theory too. In the 1940s, builders discovered some bones on the tiny Nikumaroro Island. That's right here in the South Pacific Ocean, and about 650km from where Amelia was meant to land. But experts who studied the bones at the time decided they actually belonged to a man. Fast forward to today and those bones are long lost. But an American professor decided to revisit the case anyway. He used a pair of Amelia's pants to figure out her measurements and used a photograph of her holding a can of oil to estimate the length of her arm bones. His verdict? He thinks the bones are a likely match. So, has the Amelia Earhart mystery been finally solved? We can't be sure, and we probably won't ever know with 100% certainty. But what we do know is that no matter what happened on her final trip, Amelia is still inspiring little girls to have some very big dreams.