Charles Lindbergh

Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974), nicknamed Slim,Lucky Lindy, and The Lone Eagle, was an American aviator, author, inventor, military officer, explorer, and social activist.

In 1927, at the age of 25, Lindbergh emerged from the virtual obscurity of a U.S. Air Mail pilot to instantaneous world fame as the result of his Orteig Prize-winning solo nonstop flight from Roosevelt Field on New York's Long Island to Le Bourget Field in Paris, France. He flew the distance of nearly 3,600 statute miles (5,800 km) in a single-seat, single-engine, purpose-built Ryan monoplane, Spirit of St. Louis. As a result of this flight, he was the first person in history to be in New York one day and Paris the next. The record-setting flight took 33 ¹⁄₂ hours. Lindbergh, a U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve officer, was also awarded the nation's highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his historic exploit.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Lindbergh used his fame to promote the development of both commercial aviation and Air Mail services in the United States and the Americas. In March 1932, his infant son, Charles, Jr., was kidnapped and murdered in what was soon dubbed the "Crime of the Century". It was described by journalist H. L. Mencken as "the biggest story since the resurrection." The kidnapping eventually led to the Lindbergh family being "driven into voluntary exile" in Europe, to which they sailed in secrecy from New York under assumed names in late December 1935 to "seek a safe, secluded residence away from the tremendous public hysteria" in America. The Lindberghs returned to the United States in April 1939.