Charles Lindbergh

Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator and military officer.

Lindbergh was born in Detroit, Michigan, on February 4, 1902, and spent most of his childhood in Little Falls, Minnesota, and Washington, D.C. He was the only child of Charles August Lindbergh (birth name Carl Månsson; 1859–1924), who had emigrated from Sweden to Melrose, Minnesota, as an infant, and Evangeline Lodge Land Lindbergh (1876–1954) of Detroit.

Lindbergh had three elder paternal half-sisters: Lillian, Edith, and Eva.

His father, a U.S. Congressman (R-MN-6) from 1907 to 1917, was one of the few congressmen to oppose the entry of the U.S. into World War I (although his congressional term ended one month before the House of Representatives voted to declare war on Germany).

His father's book Why Is Your Country at War?, which criticized the nation's entry into the war, was seized by federal agents under the Comstock Act.

The couple separated in 1909 when Lindbergh was seven years old.

Lindbergh's mother was a chemistry teacher at Cass Technical High School in Detroit and later at Little Falls High School, from which her son graduated on June 5, 1918.

Lindbergh attended more than a dozen other schools from Washington, D.C., to California during his childhood and teenage years (none for more than a year or two), including the Force School and Sidwell Friends School while living in Washington with his father, and Redondo Union High School in Redondo Beach, California, while living there with his mother.

Although he enrolled in the College of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in late 1920, Lindbergh dropped out in the middle of his sophomore year and then went to Lincoln, Nebraska, in March 1922 to begin flight training.

From an early age, Lindbergh had exhibited an interest in the mechanics of motorized transportation, including his family's Saxon Six automobile, and later his Excelsior motorbike.

By the time that he started college as a mechanical engineering student, he had also become fascinated with flying, though he "had never been close enough to a plane to touch it".

After quitting college in February 1922, Lindbergh enrolled at the Nebraska Aircraft Corporation's flying school in Lincoln and flew for the first time on April 9 as a passenger in a two-seat Lincoln Standard "Tourabout" biplane trainer piloted by Otto Timm.

A few days later, Lindbergh took his first formal flying lesson in that same aircraft, though he was never permitted to solo because he could not afford to post the requisite damage bond.

To gain flight experience and earn money for further instruction, Lindbergh left Lincoln in June to spend the next few months barnstorming across Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana as a wing walker and parachutist.

He also briefly worked as an airplane mechanic at the Billings, Montana, municipal airport.

He became a U.S. Army Air Service cadet in 1924, earning the rank of second lieutenant in 1925.

On May 20–21, 1927, he made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance of 5,800 km, flying alone for 33.5 hours.

His aircraft, the Spirit of St. Louis, was designed and built by the Ryan Airline Company specifically to compete for the Orteig Prize for the first flight between the two cities.

Later that year, he was hired as a U.S. Air Mail pilot in the Greater St. Louis area, where he started to prepare for his historic 1927 transatlantic flight.

For his flight, President Calvin Coolidge presented Lindbergh both the Distinguished Flying Cross and Medal of Honor, the highest U.S. military award.

He also earned the highest French order of merit, the Legion of Honor.

In July 1927, he was promoted to the rank of colonel in the U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve.

His achievement spurred significant global interest in both commercial aviation and air mail, which revolutionized the aviation industry worldwide (a phenomenon dubbed the "Lindbergh boom"), and he spent much time promoting these industries.

Time magazine honored Lindbergh as its first Man of the Year in 1928, President Herbert Hoover appointed him to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1929, and he received the Congressional Gold Medal in 1930.

In 1931, he and French surgeon Alexis Carrel began work on inventing the first perfusion pump, a device credited with making future heart surgeries and organ transplantation possible.

On March 1, 1932, Lindbergh's first-born infant child, Charles Jr., was kidnapped and murdered in what the American media called the "Crime of the Century".

The case prompted the United States Congress to establish kidnapping as a federal crime if a kidnapper crosses state lines with a victim.

It was later posthumously reprinted and issued in 1934 under the title Your Country at War, and What Happens to You After a War.

By late 1935, the press and hysteria surrounding the case had driven the Lindbergh family into exile in Europe, from where they returned in 1939.

In the months before the United States entered World War II, Lindbergh's non-interventionist stance and statements about Jews and race led some to believe he was a Nazi sympathizer, although Lindbergh never publicly stated support for the Nazis and condemned them several times in both his public speeches and personal diary.

However, like many Americans before the attack on Pearl Harbor, he opposed not only the military intervention of the U.S. but also the provision of military supplies to the British.

He supported the isolationist America First Committee and resigned from the U.S. Army Air Corps in April 1941 after President Franklin Roosevelt publicly rebuked him for his views.

In September 1941, Lindbergh gave a significant address, titled "Speech on Neutrality", outlining his position and arguments against greater American involvement in the war.

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and German declaration of war against the U.S., Lindbergh avidly supported the American war effort but was rejected for active duty, as Roosevelt refused to restore his Air Corps colonel's commission.

Instead he flew 50 combat missions in the Pacific Theater as a civilian consultant and was unofficially credited with shooting down an enemy aircraft.

In 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower restored his commission and promoted him to brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force Reserve.

In his later years, he became a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, international explorer and environmentalist, helping to establish national parks in the U.S. and protect certain endangered species and tribal people in both the Philippines and east Africa.

In 1974, Lindbergh died of lymphoma at age 72.

Although not the first transatlantic flight, it was the first solo transatlantic flight and the longest at the time by nearly 2000 mi. It became known as one of the most consequential flights in history and ushered in a new era of air transportation between parts of the globe.

Lindbergh was raised mostly in Little Falls, Minnesota, and Washington, D.C., the son of prominent U.S. Congressman Charles August Lindbergh.