Charles Lindbergh

Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator and military officer. On May 20–21, 1927, he made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance of , flying alone for 33.5 hours. Lindbergh's 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. Although not the first transatlantic flight, it was the first solo transatlantic flight and the longest at the time by nearly . 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. He became a U.S. Army Air Service cadet in 1924, earning the rank of second lieutenant in 1925. 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. 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.