Think You Know Amelia?

Seventy years after she went missing, dedicated investigators remain fixated on Amelia Earhart and her disappearance. (“An American Obsession,” June/July 2007.) Test the depth of your knowledge of this iconic figure here (you can check your answers below). Then read about Earhart’s fashion choices in the June issue of Smithsonian magazine:

1) True or False: Amelia Earhart set her first flying record – a 14,000-foot climb in a Kinner Airster over Southern California’s Rogers Field – in 1922.

2) True or False: The Fokker tri-motor in which Earhart in 1928 made her first transatlantic flight as a passenger was named Freedom.

3) What did her manager (and later, husband), publisher George Putnam, advise her to do to appear more attractive in photographs?
A) Update her wardrobe.
B) Keep her hair tousled.
C) Use less makeup.
D) Smile with lips closed to hide the gap between her two front teeth.
E) All of the above.

4) She became “Lady Lindy” when she soloed the Atlantic in her red Lockheed Vega in 1932. Where is the airplane today?
A) In the National Air and Space Museum.
B) In the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.
C) In a private collection owned by the Putnam estate.
D) In the Planes of Fame Museum.
E) None of the above.

5) Long flights tended to give her what?
A) Headaches.
B) Foot cramps.
C) Stomach contractions.
D) Watery eyes.
E) Cotton-mouth.

Answers: 1) True. 2) False. It was named Friendship. 3) D 4) A 5) C

Source: Amelia Earhart: A Biography. By Doris Rich. Smithsonian Institution. 1989.