my name's dan snow and i want to tell you about history hit tv it's like the netflix for history hundreds of exclusive documentaries and interviews with the world's best historians we've got an exclusive offer available to fans of timeline if you go to history hit tv you can either follow the information below this video or just google history hit tv and use the code timeline you get a special introductory offer go and check it out in the meantime enjoy this video [Music] the pursuit of aviation was a preoccupation which evaded humans until the early 20th century but from the moment the wright brothers made the first controlled flight in 1903 this new technology took off in an unimaginable way society was also changing women were beginning to demand more rights and aeronautics was an area where women could flourish they were by no means on an equal footing with men but as flight was in its infancy it didn't have a long history of male dominance one pilot who embodied female aviation endeavour was emilia earhart by the time amelia came along there were very few women flying but she was just attracted to it as a career it was very difficult for her to do what she wanted to do because there was not a lot of money in it for women through sheer drive and determination she would become the most recognizable aviator of her time she was one of the most famous people in the world people hung on her every word and followed her activities she had a message about aviation she had a message about women the focus on her own career was mirrored by the man she would end up marrying she liked him and they worked together well he was naturally drawn then to amelia and what she could represent what the two of them could do together and so she finally did realize we have a good enough friendship here and i think we can make this work emilia would leave a lasting legacy which would inspire determined female aviators of future generations amelia was able to reach people further from just being an aviator she resonated with them as a courageous and very honest person amelia known in her family as ae had a champion in her younger sister muriel who would be instrumental in keeping amelia's memory alive a role muriel's daughter amy klepner would continue after her death people seem to think she was around all the time but she wasn't i mean she was very busy with her own life and she only visited very rarely when she was on the east coast for some other reason she wrote the book because she did think she was in a unique position she knew that she was the only one who really had had that close association with ae to this day many are still trying to solve the puzzle of what actually happened to emilia countless theories have been explored but still her disappearance is an open-ended mystery [Music] [Music] on the 2nd of july 1937 the ss itasca waited in the middle of the pacific ocean just off howland island 2 000 miles from papua new guinea the ship was supposed to supervise the landing and refuelling of a lockheed electra before it set off for hawaii on its penultimate journey in the circumnavigation of the globe [Music] the pilot was amelia earhart and the navigator fred noonan they never arrived [Music] the coast guard ship at tasca was waiting for her at howland island they were going to wait and help her when she arrived manage the fueling of the aircraft and setting her off for the next leg of the flight which would be to hawaii unfortunately the communications plan was not perfect they could hear her but she could not hear them there's desperation on both sides they know from the signal strength that she is coming but they can't see her and she can't find the island it was a headline story for quite a while and then gradually it died down [Music] there have been many theories as to what happened to emilia but none have been able to give a definitive answer [Applause] the search for emilia has been going on since her disappearance after the war in the early 50s and then into the 60s a lot of theories started to spin up again and i think it was just kind of interest as to what happened to her we know that she disappeared off the face of the earth one of the most famous women of the 20th century so what happened got to figure this out there are three main theories that they just missed their objective had to be some what off course and that they ran out of fuel and crashed and sank which seemed to most people the most plausible and was the most popular view for quite a while [Music] then there were some stories that suggested that she had been forced down somewhere and captured by the japanese there was never any really solid evidence for this there were many contradictory views [Music] and then there's the third theory they flew on to nick mororo which was at the time called gardner island that they might have survived a few days we started out investigating aviation mysteries but avoiding the amelia earhart mystery i reasoned that she probably just ran out of gas looking for a tiny island and a big ocean and the whole thing just seemed like a media circus and i didn't want any part of it in 1988 two of our members approached me they said we have a theory about amelia earhart and they pointed out that the last thing that earhart said in flight over the radio she said she was flying at a particular line and running north and south and the first thing we found out is this was not a new familiar heart theory this is the oldest theory this is what the u.s navy thought happened in 1937 and then there were all these radio distress calls that were heard from night after night after night after she disappeared and radio bearings were taken on those calls and the best ones cross near this island well this is all making a lot of sense i guess we need to go and check out that island well there was no big silver airplane lurking in the bushes but there were airplane parts in the abandoned village that was on the island the events surrounding her disappearance have an almost mythic status akin to the legend of the loch ness monster it's understandable that people really still want to know what happened to her in that day and age it really wasn't unusual for people to disappear in a flying accident i understand that people still want to know what happened i think that they really just need to move on a bit and just be appreciative of who she was what we're still missing is what everyone wants that final piece call it a smoking gun whether something like that still exists out there i don't know behind all the mystery and fame were two sisters one internationally famous and the other quietly supportive both were staunch advocates of equality in society amelia mary earhart the eldest sister was born on july 24 1897 in the small kansas town of atchison two and a half years later her parents edwin and amy had a second daughter named muriel a younger sister for amelia muriel was the future aviator's constant childhood companion and from the beginning the pair had adventure on the mind hours were spent climbing trees and riding horses when the hot kansas sun became too much they would seek shelter in the library of their grandfather losing themselves in the tales of victor hugo and alexander dumas i think my grandmother instilled in them a great love of reading so reading was always very important to them they didn't do a lot of the usual little girl activities they were both tomboys and liked sports they played baseball and at one point asked for a football for christmas and they were very active growing up in atchison was typical for middle america at that time if you were in a small town there's a little level of society they were kind of in the upper level of that but they were outside playing with all their friends you know doing the normal things that you do in a normal small town in the midwest like that [Music] this stable period in their lives would however come to an end my grandfather was an alcoholic and that became more of a problem he was a lawyer but he had issues he had problems and eventually they all moved to los angeles he couldn't hold a job which was one of the reasons they moved around a lot and i think finally my grandmother decided she couldn't deal with it emilia and muriel's adolescent years were dominated by these new struggles the sisters coped with the uncertainty by throwing themselves into their studies both were bright and determined students in 1919 they left home and went to college women were excluded from the ivy league schools but women's colleges had developed as a result of that so that there were alternatives well emilia was always interested in studying and going to school and finding something that she wanted to do she was never the type of girl that was just waiting to get married and start the family life she went to columbia and took some pre-med classes and she decided although she really was interested in medical research to some extent that she would never want to practice medicine she thought she'd be really bad at it so she gave that up she just realized this was not the profession for her [Music] amelia's parents briefly reconciled and asked their daughters to join them in california muriel was unwilling to abandon her studies and refused to go but amelia joined them out west she was 23. she had no plans and no clear idea of what her future might hold but if she was waiting for a spark to ignite her life she would not have to do so for very long the spark would cause an explosion one which her sister muriel would be instrumental in sustaining even after amelia's death [Music] at the time of emilia's move to california air shows were becoming popular attractions across the us pilots showed off their skills in the latest flying machines and there were even short trips on offer for braver visitors it was at one such show that amelia first formed the obsession that would consume her entire life there was a lot of barnstorming a lot of introducing people to flying you know it was past the experimental stage there was no other real use for aircraft yet there were no businesses really except for people flying airplanes showing them at air shows things like that she went to a fair with my grandfather some flyer was taking people up on short rides and she did that and apparently that convinced her that that was what she really wanted to do emilia was now determined she would learn how to fly she began lessons at a small airfield in los angeles her tutor there was a woman named neta snook netter was just a year older than amelia and the pair took to each other at once by the time emilia came along there were very few women flying neda snook was kind of a model for her it seemed to me that they just hadn't figured how to keep women out and they would have if they could have but they really couldn't because there was nothing to prevent them from taking lessons and if they qualified for a license they qualified for a license they had a good relationship and they understood that there were few women in the business and they were both determined to be a part of it by this stage muriel had completed her studies and joined the family out west she knew what flying meant to her sister so in 1921 she lent amelia her savings with it emilia was able to buy her first aircraft akina airster after three years of flying the airster she was forced to sell it due to her parents divorce she and muriel followed their mother back to massachusetts sporadically flying when she could it wasn't until april 1928 when her grounded career really took off a year earlier charles lindbergh had become the first person to fly non-stop across the atlantic the crossing in his plane the spirit of st louis had made lindbergh an international sensation now it was amelia's turn there was a woman named mrs guest who had wanted to fly an aircraft across and be the first woman to fly across the atlantic ocean her family objected and so the promoters started looking for another woman that might go in her stead emilio came down and was interviewed by gp putnam gp for some reason has had a really bad press and i think it's really been unfair because people have repeated stories and attitudes without ever having met him as far as i can tell putnam was from a family with a publishing business and he himself was a bit of a an explorer and he had done a lot of traveling as a child he'd gone out to oregon he ran a newspaper in ben he was elected mayor of the town he can't have been such an awful person he really loved promoting people that were going out and doing new and different things and trying different types of treks and flights and things like that so he offered to become her publicist and help her make her way in aviation [Music] more experienced men were to pilot the plane and amelia would be little more than a passenger nevertheless she quickly agreed on the 17th of june 1928 her plane friendship left newfoundland and headed across the atlantic a little over 20 hours and 40 minutes later amelia's plane landed at berry port a small town in south wales miss earhart's aircraft friendship taxis toward english shore at southampton after first landing in wales there's miss earhart in flying talks her life changed forever it was a dramatic moment in history [Music] it doesn't make a lot of sense because she was only a passenger but still she was the first woman to actually fly across the atlantic and at this point in 1928 it was still very dangerous to do so with oneness that's fine there's always anxiety and i think as far as the family goes they knew it was dangerous but i think they'd accepted the fact that this is what she wanted to do she toured in europe there for a little while before she came back and that was the beginning of her way of learning how to make a career in aviation she sensed right away that things had changed and she would be able to use this opportunity emilia enjoyed ticker tape parades in new york and boston which the proud muriel attended too but the crossing brought emilia more than just fame she and the handsome publisher gp putnam had formed a deep bond during preparations for the flight their relationship blossomed in the months afterwards putnam was a business partner as much as a romantic one he took every opportunity to spread emilia's fame even sidelining other pilots he thought might threaten her standing as the preeminent woman aviator she was a strong woman she would not have bought into that if that wasn't what she wanted to do the fact that he was enormously helpful to her and she might not have had the career she had had she not had him take over the management and the publicity and arranging the lecture tours all the things that were necessary for her to keep flying because it was expensive amelia and putnam were determined to further her career in aviation despite the majority of women at the time being expected to go down the more traditional route of raising a family emilia's sister muriel had married in june 1929 and later had two children i think she was not altogether happy in her marriage my mother didn't have the same strong feeling about being independent she married because she wanted to be married and have children and i think her marriage in some ways at that time was more typical that women did more or less give in and to some extent they took a servant's role and they served the meal and did all the child care and all the food preparation and the rest of it and that was what was expected [Music] perhaps it was these difficulties which put amelia off marriage for a long time she resisted putnam's proposals finally she relented and on the 7th of february 1931 emilia and putnam were married in connecticut unusually for the time she did not take his name she remained amelia earhart she really wasn't sold on marriage she was sure that it would ruin her career in some way or another this was what she had always felt they really believed that marriage was a serious problem for a woman who wanted to accomplish anything on her own i mean she thought of it as kind of a trap kind of a cage and this is why she specified when she did marry that she was not going to give up her freedom completely i think she didn't want to have children children would have interfered she was a great advocate of birth control in fact she gave some birth control advice to her to my mother what you've taken would have uh taken me out of the picture amelia again with stolson gordon is given a big city welcome this time it's new york who lauds amelia as first woman to fly across atlantic despite amelia's fame and undeniable determination many in the aviation industry in fact had doubts about her abilities as a pilot they thought she was far more adept at making the headlines than making a landing for her part emilia was well aware of her limited role in that famous flight across the atlantic she got zero from the friendship flight nothing the two men were paid she was paid nothing so that it was very difficult for her to do what she wanted to do because there was not a lot of money in it for women probably for men either except the difference was men could get into commercial aviation they could be commercial pilots whereas women were excluded from that when amelia landed in wales in that 1928 flight as a passenger and started to receive all these accolades she really felt that she didn't deserve it and she vowed then that she would have to make her own flight at some point so that she could actually deserve this kind of accolade and be respected as a pilot in her own right amelia's drive and ambition to fly across the atlantic would not stop at this accomplishment she would go on to break other speed and distance records constantly proving that being a woman was by no means a hindrance her thirst for bigger and more epic adventure would seal her name in history but it would also have tragic consequences [Music] hatboro pennsylvania in 1930 amelia becomes first woman to fly in autogyro married a famed publisher here helping her into strange craft amelia is mrs george putnam now but as far as planes are concerned she's still amelia earhart of the airlines who will give flight to anything with wings this is sort of ship lady lindy has never flown before but she'll fly it just the same emilia was under pressure to maintain her status she had little time for her family whose requests for financial help were just another unwanted burden muriel who had helped finance amelia's first plane was deeply hurt i think she did become more and more controlling what she did to help my mother was to loan my parents the money they needed to buy their first house and she viewed this as a business transaction and i think she thought it was not properly acknowledged my grandmother who was a really lovely person had a really serious problem with money she had extravagant tastes and couldn't manage money properly ae gave her money and we provided for her support and resented the fact that my grandmother gave away some of that money so there was a little bit of resentment there financial matters were always secondary as emilia's focus was on her career she was only a passenger when she first crossed the atlantic and her next goal was to be the pilot with a keen sense of marketing gp putnam fixed the departure to precisely five years after lindbergh's flight he also insisted the plane she flew was left nameless nothing would be allowed to distract from emilia as she set off from canada it would be a leap into the unknown [Music] there was probably anxiety in the family about all her flights because there was always a risk long distance flying was was risky [Music] during this intense flight she battled mechanical difficulties strong winds and icy conditions her original destination was paris but after 14 hours and 56 minutes of flying she landed in a field in culmore northern ireland on may 20th 1932 just five years after lindy had shocked the world with his famous flight she successfully spanned the atlantic from newfoundland to londonderry ireland the first woman to make the flight solo when asked if she had been scared she replied with juan good humor it would sound more exciting if i only could admit being shockingly frightened but i honestly wasn't [Music] she was always fighting the fuel fumes that sort of thing and it was an ordeal there's no doubt about it the only other person to have done it was charles lindbergh so that put her in quite a high realm there from that moment on she was well known she had actually performed this fight on her own and she was taken seriously and then was able then to translate that into a career and which is what her hopes had always been [Music] having safely landed in ireland emilia traveled europe where she was greeted by notable dignitaries and crowds of adoring fans and on her return home she was given a hero's welcome following this momentous flight emilia would go on to conquer several more aviation feats there would be no stopping her amina earhart america's heroine in the days when aviation meant adventure readied her plane for another challenging exploit the only woman to fly the atlantic alone she now planned her first trans-pacific flight from honolulu to california [Music] flying from hawaii amelia would arrive safely in california where she was met with an eager press and a cheering crowd he played i had ice conditions and general storm on this flight really no bad weather at all except a few little rain squalls i saw the moon and stars most of the night by 1935 her name was among the most recognized in the world a still grander goal was in emilia's sights however a circumnavigation of the globe she planned a gruelling route along the equator the longest ever attempted her plane would be the lockheed electra capable of flying up to 4500 miles without refueling the electro was a good airplane for the era she thought it would be good to have two engines it had room for her it had room for her crew she had an airplane that was far superior to the ones that she cloned previously much more powerful much more equipment than the earlier ones did [Music] in march 1937 emilia set off from california on the round the world record attempt she flew to hawaii and after a rest day planned to fly on across the pacific but as emilia accelerated down the runway she lost control [Music] the landing gear snapped and the plane slid to a halt on its belly it seemed at the time fortuitous that amelia was unhurt however a more severe crash could have ultimately saved her life after rapid repairs to the aircraft emilia took off again from california on the 21st of may 1937. this time she headed east [Music] amelia earhart her navigator fred noonan said goodbye to george palmer putnam her husband since 1931 the huge lockheed electra dubbed by amelia the flying laboratory sailed off on a planned round-the-world trip her aim ostensibly was to gather weather information for use in a class she planned to teach in aeronautics at purdue university a month later she had circled the world to reach papua new guinea the great pacific ocean stretched out ahead of her separating amelia from the finish line by seven thousand miles a reunion with her younger sister muriel with her husband gp putnam and with the rest of her family back home was almost insight the most difficult leg of the journey lay ahead on the morning of the second of july 1937 emilia and her navigator fred noonan took off from lei in papua new guinea their next stop was howland island a barren dot in the middle of the pacific ocean just two and a half miles long precise navigation and expert piloting would be needed to find it [Music] they fueled up the plane and they knew that they had a long long trip about 2500 miles that was going to take anywhere from say 16 to 20 some hours the hard part of that trip was finding the island you're out in the middle of nowhere in this part of the pacific ocean there's just nothing out there there's no shipping lanes there's no one else flying so you really have to be spot on to know where you're going and have everything right after almost 20 hours of flying they reached the point where they expected to find howland island but they could not see their landing nor could they see the u.s coast guard cutter itasca which was stationed by the island and looking out for amelia's plane [Music] the coast guard ship at tasca was waiting for her at howland island there was fuel waiting there for her they were going to wait and help her when she arrived manage the fueling of the aircraft and setting her off for the next leg of the flight which would be to hawaii they were listening on the radio to receive her messages and to communicate with her unfortunately the communications plan was not perfect they could hear her but she could not hear them a flurry of confused missed and half distorted transmissions shot back and forth between ship and plane but consistent two-way communication was never established in the skies above the vast waters of the pacific emilia was running out of fuel [Music] 20 hours and 14 minutes after takeoff one last confirmed radio message from emilia was received on the itasca and then silence [Music] after her last radio transmission about 8 45 in the morning they waited for a while and they kept trying to contact her and then they signaled back to others back in hawaii that they had lost her signal they couldn't find her and immediately after that the coast guard of the navy started gearing up for a search to try to see if she had come down somewhere now there really aren't many places that she could have come down on land but they searched waters they searched some of the islands that were within a few hundred miles and did all they could it was a massive sierra search of course there was a lot of anxiety my mother was certainly hopeful during the two weeks or so when the navy was searching they would find her and that she would come back day by day the hope would fade for the family of amelia [Music] the whole world too were waiting for news of her the epic undertaking of her venture to circumnavigate the globe along with a dramatic disappearance would have far-reaching implications the repercussions of which would transcend her physical endeavor and place emilia in the realm of myth and legend [Music] british freighter the coast guard and the navy sped to the search the battleship colorado steaming out from honolulu under forced draft california the aircraft carrier lexington with 3 000 men and 72 planes aboard races into the distant pacific to join the greatest searching party in the history of aviation [Music] on the 18th of july 1937 the search for amelia earhart was abandoned the official conclusion was that her plane had run out of fuel and ditched in the ocean north of howland no wreckage or bodies were ever found the years that followed would see emilia disappear from public consciousness and as the theater of world war ii began more pressing matters occupied the headlines after the fallout from the war had settled amelia earhart would re-enter public consciousness and speculation as to what became of her began to gain traction once again [Music] there were some stories that emerged after the second world war that suggested that she had been forced down somewhere and captured by the japanese there were many contradictory views we know that she disappeared off the face of the earth the search went on for about two weeks and it was called off in the middle of july so at that point in time it was fairly clear that that she had not survived she and noonan had not survived the flight not everybody accepted the official verdict that she simply crashed and sank it's the intuitive theory it's kind of the default explanation if there's no evidence that something else happened yeah it's like i used to think tiny island big ocean limited fuel what the heck of course there is a ton of evidence that something else happened rick's theory was that amelia earhart did make land on that morning in 1937 that she lived as a castaway for a period of weeks or even months before finally succumbing to the elements on the exposed gardiner island known today as nicomoro hundreds of miles to the south of howland island a plane did circle the reef-bound atoll during the 1937 search its crew even noted signs of recent habitation these however were attributed to a local work party the island was never investigated again [Music] [Music] the efforts of tiger have since established that no such group was active at the time and more evidence was to emerge that emilia had managed to reach land as the search scoured the pacific there were reports of radio transmissions from emilia's plane ships and islands in the region picked up new signals on her frequency the airplane's manufacturer lockheed said wait if you guys are hearing radio calls from this airplane night after night that airplane's not floating around in the water it's on land not only that it's on its wheels because she's got to be able to run an engine to recharge the battery that the radio depends upon well is there anything that had happened on gardner island at that time that could be attributable to earhart well as a matter of fact three years after earhart disappeared when the british had gotten around to putting people on the island to set up a colony the bones of a castaway were found on a remote end of the island the remains of a fire dead birds dead turtle this is a campsite castaway had tried to survive and it ultimately failed there were parts of a woman's shoe and parts of a man's shoe and a box that once had once contained a sextant navigational instrument it was the same kind of sextant that fred noonan used as a backup instrument we know that we haven't found anything yet that can be absolutely conclusively linked to earhart there's no one thing the problem with that theory is that i don't believe she had enough fuel to get there when she said she was out of fuel to be able to fly that distance further down it's nearly impossible she does not say i'm out of gas i'm going down mayday mayday nothing like that those who are sure that she crashed at sea make the assumption that because nothing further was heard from her that she must have gone down that immediately after that broadcast was made an engine quit and she was so busy setting up for a landing to see that she didn't have time to make a distress call i have to believe that she and fred noonan got very close to the island based on the strength of her radio signals however they just couldn't find it so unfortunately i think that they ran out of fuel and had to ditch the airplane in the sea and that airplane would not have floated for very long they would have gone down fairly quickly the exact circumstances that led to amelia's disappearance may never be confirmed any definitive answer would certainly come too late for her sister muriel who died in 1998 my mother found it very painful when people kept coming and saying they wanted to do searches probably four or five six million dollars over the ocean searches around howland and nicomero i've also it's money that could be much better spent there nothing is being gained by this there's no you're not going to learn anything useful to aviation or to anyone else by doing it rather than dwelling on her death those closest to amelia understood that looking at her life could give something back to society emilia's widower g.p putnam who had been instrumental in her career would work closely with amelia's sister muriel on a series of biographies he also took financial responsibility for emilia's aging mother [Music] gb took over the support of my grandmother and provided her with money and i think he showed great forbearance and great patience and really great generosity because he did support her for many years publishing her own book about amelia muriel would also continue to speak publicly about the life and achievements of her elder sister she knew that she was the only one who really had had that close association with ae i don't think she really got tired of it she continued to feel love and admiration for a as long as she lived [Music] in writing about the life of the world's most famous aviator muriel has helped redress the balance in aviation which quickly became another male-dominated industry men had the advantage they got their aviation training in service that training allowed the men to get the job as commercial pilots and women were not able to to do that she went on to be able to use her presence to support women in college taking engineering courses to suggest that women could have careers and maybe have an alternative to family life if they chose the tale of these two sisters can be viewed as a story of the society they were living in a society where women were slowly being allowed into different industries but at the sacrifice of family life [Music] well i think they chose different lives because they had different ability i think my mother was a really good teacher but she also wanted to have a family and she was happy with the choice she made there isn't any way really to compare the one life with the other one was relatively ordinary and one was quite spectacular [Music] you