Charles Lindbergh
Early in the morning on May 20, 1927 Charles A. Lindbergh took off in The Spirit of St. Louis from Roosevelt Field near New York City. Flying northeast along the coast, he was sighted later in the day flying over Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. From St. Johns, Newfoundland, he headed out over the Atlantic, using only a magnetic compass, his airspeed indicator, and luck to navigate toward Ireland. The flight had captured the imagination of the American public like few events in history. Citizens waited nervously by their radios, listening for news of the flight. When Lindbergh was seen crossing the Irish coast, the world cheered and eagerly anticipated his arrival in Paris. A frenzied crowd of more than 100,000 people gathered at Le Bourget Field to greet him. When he landed, less than 34 hours after his departure from New York, Lindbergh became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
Lindbergh's feat gained him immediate, international fame. The press named him "Lucky Lindy" and the "Lone Eagle." Americans and Europeans idolized the shy, slim young man and showered him with honors.
At the request of the U.S. government, Lindbergh flew to various Latin-American countries in December 1927 as a symbol of American good will. While in Mexico, he met Anne Spencer Morrow, the daughter of Dwight W. Morrow, the American ambassador there. Lindbergh married Anne Morrow in 1929. He taught her to fly, and they went on many flying expeditions together throughout the world, charting new routes for various airlines. Anne Morrow Lindbergh also became famous for her poetry and other writings.
While in Europe, Lindbergh was invited by the governments of France and Germany to tour the aircraft industries of their countries. Lindbergh was especially impressed with the highly advanced aircraft industry of Nazi Germany. In 1938, Hermann Goering, a high Nazi official, presented Lindbergh with a German medal of honor. Lindbergh's acceptance of the medal caused an outcry in the United States among critics of Nazism.
Amelia Earhart
By early 1932 no other person had successfully flown solo across the Atlantic since Lindbergh. She had broken several records on this flight...the first woman to fly the Atlantic solo and only person to fly it twice...the longest non-stop distance flown by a woman...and a record for crossing in the shortest time.
Later in 1935, Amelia began to formulate plans for an around-the-world flight. The Lockheed Electra 10E was chosen as the plane for the flight. The flight would be two major firsts...she would be the first woman, and she would travel the longest possible distance, circumnavigating the globe at its waist.
As Amelia was taking off from Luke Field near Pearl Harbor she over compensated for a dropped right wing and the plane swung to the left out of control. The undercarriage collapsed and the aircraft slide along the runway on its belly. Fortunately there was no fire but a great deal of damage was done to the plane. The Electra was shipped back to California for repairs as Amelia continued to make plans for another attempt at the around-the-world flight. During her final flight, It was determined that the plane went down some 35-100 miles off the coast of Howland Island. President Roosevelt authorized a search of 9 naval ships and 66 aircraft at an estimated cost of over $4 million, but Earhart was never found.
Over the years many unconfirmed sightings have been reported...and many theories abound. Among those theories:
· Amelia was on a spy mission authorized by President Roosevelt and was captured
· She purposely dove her plane into the Pacific
· She was captured by the Japanese and forced to broadcast to American GI's as "Tokyo Rose" during World War II
· She lived for years on an island in the South Pacific with a native fisherman
Jim Thorpe
Jacobus Franciscus "Jim" Thorpe (28 May 1888 – 28 March 1953[1]) was an American athlete. Considered one of the most versatile athletes in modern sports, he won Olympic gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon, played American football at the collegiate and professional levels, and also played professional baseball and basketball. He lost his Olympic titles after it was found he was paid for playing two seasons of minor league baseball before competing in the games, thus violating the amateur status rules.
Thorpe was Native American Indian and European American. Raised in the Sac and Fox nation in Oklahoma, he was named Wa-Tho-Huk, roughly translated as "Bright Path". He played on several All-American Indian teams throughout his career, and barnstormed as a professional basketball player with a team composed entirely of Native Americans.
In 1950 Thorpe was named the greatest athlete of the first half of the twentieth century by the Associated Press (AP). In 1999 he was ranked third on the AP list of top athletes of the 20th century.
His professional sports career ended in the years of the Great Depression, and Thorpe struggled to earn a living. He worked several odd jobs, struggled with alcoholism, and lived out the last years of his life in failing health and poverty. In 1983, thirty years after his death, the International Olympic Commission (IOC) restored his Olympic medals to his name.
Babe Ruth
George Herman Ruth, Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948), also popularly known as "Babe", "The Bambino", and "The Sultan of Swat", was an American Major League baseball player from 1914–1935. Ruth is one of the greatest sports heroes of American culture[1] and the most celebrated player in American baseball history. He has been named the greatest baseball player in history in various surveys and rankings, and his home run hitting prowess and charismatic personality made him a larger than life figure in the "Roaring Twenties".He was the first player to hit 60 home runs in one season (1927), a record which stood for 34 years until broken by Roger Maris in 1961. Ruth's lifetime total of 714 home runs at his retirement in 1935 was a record for 39 years, until broken by Hank Aaron in 1974.
In 1936, Ruth became one of the first five players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. In 1969, he was named baseball's Greatest Player Ever in a ballot commemorating the 100th anniversary of professional baseball. In 1998, The Sporting News ranked Ruth Number 1 on the list of "Baseball's 100 Greatest Players." In 1999, baseball fans named Ruth to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. According to ESPN, he was the first true American sports celebrity superstar whose fame transcended baseball. Beyond his statistics, Ruth completely changed baseball itself. The popularity of the game exploded in the 1920s, largely due to him.
Off the field he was famous for his charity, but also was noted for his often reckless lifestyle. Even though he died more than 60 years ago, his name is still one of the most famous in American sports.
In 1946, he began experiencing severe pain over his left eye. In November 1946, a visit to French Hospital in New York revealed Ruth had a malignant tumor in his neck that had encircled his left carotid artery. He received post-operative radiation therapy. Before leaving the hospital in February 1947, he lost approximately 80 pounds (35 kg). On August 16, the day after Frick's visit, Babe Ruth died at age 53 due to pneumonia. An autopsy showed the cancer Ruth died from that began in the nose and mouth and spread widely throughout his body after. His body lay in repose in Yankee Stadium.
Gertrude Ederle
Gertrude Caroline Ederle (October 23, 1905 – November 30, 2003) was an American competitive swimmer. In 1926, she became the first woman to swim across the English Channel.
Gertrude was the daughter of a German immigrant who ran a butcher shop on Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan. She was known as Trudy as a youth; her father gave her permission to bob her hair if she expressed an interest in swimming. She was known as the Queen of the Waves.
At the 1924 Summer Olympics, she won a gold medal as a part of the US 400-meter freestyle relay team and bronze medals for finishing third in the 100-meter and 400-meter freestyle races.
Her famous cross-channel swim began at Cap Gris-Nez in France at 07:05 on the morning of August 6, 1926. Fourteen hours and 30 minutes later, she came ashore at Kingsdown, Kent, England. Her record stood until Florence Chadwick swam the channel in 1950 in 13 hours and 20 minutes.
Ederle had poor hearing since childhood due to measles, and by the 1940s she was completely deaf. She spent the rest of her life teaching swimming to deaf children. She died on November 30, 2003 in Wyckoff, New Jersey, at the age of 98 and was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York
Dempsey and Carpentier
Called the "battle of the century" by boxing enthusiasts, the fight between Jack Dempsey and Frenchman Georges Carpentier at Boyle's Thirty Acres was an extravaganza that introduced sports as leisure for the masses at the beginning of the 1920s. The eight-sided arena, costing $325,000, was 300,000 square feet and was built in two months by 600 carpenters and 400 workers using 2,250,000 feet of lumber and 60 tons of nails. The attendees paid between five dollars and fifty cents for general admission and up to fifty dollars for ringside seats.
According to some boxing experts, the two fighters were mismatched. Dempsey, known as the "Manassa Mauler" became the heavyweight champion in 1919 when he defeated Jess Williard, the "Great White Hope" in Toledo, Ohio. But he was "labeled as draft dodger" during World War I. Dempsey applied for a domestic exemption to support his family, was granted 4A status, and continued to fight during the war. Carpentier, or the "Orchid Man," was hailed as a popular war hero having served in the air force; he received the Croix de Guerre from the French government and was referred to as "handsome, urbane, slender, and debonair.” He had defeated Joe Beckett, the British heavyweight champion in London in 1919. Rickard offered Carpentier $200,000 to Dempsey's $300,000 for the boxing event-- considerable sums for the time--as well an equal share of twenty-five percent of the film profits.
The "battle of the century" is also celebrated as the first sports event broadcast on the radio, the new mass communications medium of the decade. Rickard wanted the event broadcast to advance prizefighting in the post-war popular culture. To accommodate the radio cast, a wooden makeshift room was constructed under the stands.
When Carpentier entered the eighteen-foot square ring for the main event, he was greeted by the playing of La Marseillaise, the French national anthem. Angered by the loud cheering for Carpentier, Dempsey and his opponent did not shake hands, but the pugilists shook hands with Mayor Hague and Governor Edwards when they entered the ring. The bell rang for the start of the fight at 3:16 PM, Dempsey knocked Carpentier unconscious one minute and sixteen seconds into the fourth round, and referee Harry Ertle from Jersey City ended the bout at 3:27 PM.