0:06

Hello to everybody.

0:06

Classic. Welcome to another

0:14

episode of dirt nap city.

0:14

podcast about interesting dead

0:18

people. I'm Alex, I'm here with

0:18

my friend Kelly. What's going

0:22

on, Kelly?

0:24

Man? I'm just enjoying

0:24

all this beautiful weather we've

0:28

had recently. And we're actually

0:28

having a garage sale this

0:32

weekend. That's kind of a big

0:32

deal. Haven't done one in a

0:35

couple years. Like to purge some

0:35

stuff out of the garage. Do you

0:39

ever have garage sales?

0:40

No, we have the opposite

0:40

of a garage sale. We look like

0:43

we've purchased 10 garage sales

0:43

in our house. Oh,

0:46

so you go to garage sales

0:46

and buy people's stuff? No, we

0:50

don't. But it looks like we do.

0:50

I was looking for 100 disc CD

0:53

changer. Do you have one of those?

0:54

I actually do. I'll give it

0:56

to you close to how close to it? Are

0:57

you? Um, well, 15 feet

0:57

away. But how much would you

1:01

charge for something like that?

1:02

Dude, here's the thing.

1:02

For me, personally, I look at it

1:07

as somebody's paying me to haul

1:07

away my junk, right stuff that I

1:11

don't need and freeing up space

1:11

in my house or my garage or my

1:14

office or whatever. And so I'm,

1:14

I'm very, very negotiable and

1:19

cheap on garage sale stuff.

1:19

Whereas other people I grasa

1:22

with tend to think of what they

1:22

paid for it originally and base

1:25

their price on that. But, dude,

1:25

if you come to me, especially if

1:29

you come later in the day, like

1:29

first right out of the gate,

1:32

like let's say I have a let's

1:32

say I have a 720 P television,

1:35

right? It's a flat screen, but

1:35

it's an older flat screen. And

1:38

I'm asking 20 bucks for it. You

1:38

know, that's, that's not bad.

1:42

Somebody comes in and ask me

1:42

offers me two bucks for it. I'm

1:45

gonna say no, but what I'll say

1:45

is, especially if it's early in

1:48

the morning, I'm gonna say come

1:48

back at noon. And if it's still

1:52

here, you can have it.

1:54

Yeah, you know, if I just

1:54

could I just take a tour through

1:58

your house and just grab stuff.

1:58

And by that too, is everything

2:03

for sale or just the stuff on

2:03

the one. It's,

2:05

it's called a garage

2:05

sale. stuff in the garage or in

2:11

front of the garage. Okay. But

2:11

we we've definitely, we've

2:15

definitely, like cleared the

2:15

house of some stuff. It's not

2:18

100%. But that's what I'm doing

2:18

this weekend. And I hope the

2:21

weather holds out. All right.

2:23

Well, good for you. I hope

2:23

I hope it works out. I hope you

2:26

make 10s of dollars.

2:28

I think I'll probably

2:28

hand out dirt nap city stickers

2:31

to everybody to get an idea.

2:31

Like, yeah, just here you go.

2:36

Today's subject was

2:36

actually somebody that I did get

2:39

as a request from your son.

2:39

Andrew interesting is already on

2:45

my list of people to do but

2:45

maybe he bumped it up a little.

2:51

And it's the person who when I

2:51

asked Chet GPT who we should do

2:58

always comes up in the top five

2:58

of people that they that it

3:02

suggests. Okay,

3:05

okay, is the politician

3:05

or what's his what's his lane?

3:10

Well, you made one fatal

3:10

assumption there when you said

3:14

he, what's her lane? Okay. She

3:14

is a 20th century icon. As you

3:23

know, I like the 20th century

3:23

20th century icon born in 1897,

3:29

so just just miss being born in

3:29

the 20th century. Born in 1897.

3:35

Atchison, Kansas.

3:37

All right. 1897. So she

3:37

must have been maybe what year

3:49

did she die?

3:51

She died in 1937. We think

3:57

Oh, are we talking about

3:57

Amelia Earhart, we are

4:00

we are talking about

4:00

Earhart, do you know much about

4:03

a? Yeah, a little bit? Well,

4:03

very interesting woman. Like I

4:08

said 20th century icon probably

4:08

at one point, maybe one of the

4:12

most famous people in the United

4:12

States. Shades of babe teacher

4:18

sends a hilarious is just being

4:18

kind of a feminist icon. A woman

4:23

that people looked up to as

4:23

somebody that could do things

4:27

just as well as men and just

4:27

kind of an overall badass at the

4:31

time. Have you seen the movie

4:31

that that's that just came out

4:35

called Nyad. And I've never even

4:35

heard it. It's about Diana Nyad

4:41

the woman who swim the the

4:41

flamingos channel know from

4:46

Florida to the Bahamas.

4:49

What? I don't know

4:49

anything about this. Yeah,

4:52

there's a movie out right now.

4:52

Like in theaters or on streaming

4:56

services. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

4:57

sure. It's up for Academy

4:57

Awards this year. Anyways, her

5:03

story kind of reminds me of

5:03

Amelia Earhart just has this

5:06

goal and just keeps kind of

5:06

trying to trying to get it and

5:11

I'd recommend that movie if

5:11

you're interested interested in

5:13

that type of thing. Awesome. So

5:13

Amelia Earhart, like I said, was

5:17

born in 1897. And she was raised

5:17

kind of as a, what they call

5:24

back then tomboys we don't hear

5:24

that term that much anymore, but

5:28

it's kind of a dead end. Yeah.

5:31

Maybe we should do that

5:31

one day on on our dead ends

5:34

series but she was raised to not

5:34

be just a nice little girl and

5:39

be adventurous. You know, doing

5:39

things like setting up setting

5:44

up ramps on her roof, you know,

5:44

and taking a sled and flying off

5:49

of it, you know, just very

5:49

adventurous person. And, but

5:55

beyond that kind of a relatively

5:55

didn't, didn't do a lot of

5:59

notable things in her in her

5:59

childhood. But in 1917, during

6:06

Christmas vacation, she visited

6:06

her sister in Toronto, World War

6:11

One was going on, and she saw

6:11

soldiers coming back from World

6:13

War One. And so she volunteered

6:13

with the Red Cross Red Cross.

6:18

Don't tell me she was an ambulance driver.

6:19

She was not she was a

6:19

nurse's aide. Okay, ambulance

6:22

driver seems to be kind of the

6:22

the backdoor into dirt nap city?

6:27

Yes. But she worked as a nurse's

6:27

aide in a hospital and she would

6:33

hear the stories about PILOTs

6:33

about flying in World War One.

6:37

And now remember, just to give

6:37

you a little context here, the

6:42

Wright Brothers first flight was

6:42

like 1903. Three. Exactly, yeah.

6:48

So you know, this was 1917. So

6:48

this would be kind of the

6:55

equivalent of today talking

6:55

about, like, smartphones, you

7:00

know,

7:01

they had been around for

7:01

a little while, but still nice.

7:04

Very,

7:05

very new. And here where

7:05

there was a war and people were

7:07

flying in, in the war, right.

7:07

But commercial flight wasn't

7:11

that common or anything. And

7:11

flying was really, really new.

7:16

Like I said, 15 it was only 13

7:16

years earlier, 14 years earlier,

7:22

were the first people ever, ever

7:22

flew. So that's that's a big,

7:28

big jump from from where we

7:28

were. So this was a new thing.

7:32

So she would hear these stories

7:32

about these different war

7:36

pilots. Well, like I said, she

7:36

worked in this hospital. Well,

7:43

the next year 1918. You know

7:43

what happened in 1918? Was the

7:46

pandemic. Oh, really? Okay.

7:46

Yeah. And she got it. She got

7:51

it. She was one of the first

7:51

people to get that Spanish flu.

7:55

And she got it pretty bad. She

7:55

had bad headaches, and she was

7:58

laid up for like a year. And

7:58

then throughout her life, she

8:03

kind of had these sinus issues

8:03

that every now and then she'd

8:06

have to go get get surgery on or

8:06

taking care of. But she was she

8:12

was laid up for about a year

8:12

when she came out of that she

8:16

was she couldn't shake that that

8:16

thing about, you know, going to

8:21

she wanted to go to an air show.

8:21

So father took her to an air

8:24

show in Long Beach. Long Beach

8:24

where we I think we had talked

8:30

about Howard Hughes. Yeah,

8:32

that's where he taxied

8:32

and share briefly lifted off the

8:36

Spruce Goose for excuse to

8:36

Hercules, as it was actually

8:39

known, right. You got man, I

8:40

think when they call it

8:40

the Spruce Goose before, but I

8:43

was

8:43

channeling Howard Hughes.

8:46

So she went to this air

8:46

show 1920 And the next day, she

8:51

convinced her dad to pay for her

8:51

to do a passenger flight. Now

8:55

back then passenger flights were

8:55

really uncommon. And it's kind

8:59

of like probably like going

8:59

skydiving today. Right? So she

9:02

paid $10 for 10 minutes. That's

9:02

about the equivalent of about

9:06

160 bucks today. So $10 for 10

9:06

minutes, this guy would take her

9:12

up in the in the plane, and she

9:12

was hooked. She wanted to do

9:17

more and more and more. She

9:17

begged her parents to like she

9:23

was a grown woman but still they

9:23

she didn't have any money. I

9:28

guess they did have a little bit

9:28

of money but they weren't poor.

9:32

But she where did they live

9:32

wherever she wherever she from?

9:35

Well, she grew up in in Kansas,

9:35

Kansas and Iowa and spent a lot

9:41

of time in Iowa at this time

9:41

they were in California. And the

9:46

deal with her parents was they

9:46

that she could fly. Or she could

9:51

learn how to fly but only a

9:51

woman could teach her how to

9:54

fly. So she found this woman

9:54

named Anita hooks at The Cool

10:00

name her her or her nickname was

10:00

smokey.

10:04

That's even cooler.

10:06

Free Jersey shores lucky.

10:06

In fact, Smokey was about the

10:13

same age as Amelia. But she

10:13

lived until 1991. Wow. So she

10:19

was older, she lived to be an

10:19

old woman of 96. And she wrote a

10:22

book actually called, I taught

10:22

Amelia to fly. And the deal, the

10:27

initial deal, there was 500

10:27

bucks for 12 hours as an

10:31

instructor, but they ended up

10:31

throwing a lot of they ended up

10:35

becoming friends. So she gave

10:35

her a lot of free lessons. She

10:38

saved about $1,000 doing

10:38

different odd jobs and paid

10:42

Snooki a lot of this money, and

10:42

she took her first lesson in

10:48

January of 9021. And it wasn't

10:48

easy, even getting to the

10:53

airfield. She'd have to take a

10:53

bus and then walk for miles,

10:58

just to get to the airport every

10:58

day to do this. But she was

11:01

hooked. Like I said, six months

11:01

later, she bought her first

11:04

plane. You know, like, like a

11:04

lot of these stories, these 20th

11:08

century stories we tell it's

11:08

like somebody try something. And

11:11

then six months later, they're

11:11

the head of something or they're

11:14

doing their Yeah, flags or

11:14

they're famous or something.

11:17

Yes, don't work that swiftly

11:17

these days. But six months

11:20

later, she bought a plane that

11:20

was a bright yellow biplane that

11:24

she called the canary. And by

11:24

October 2022, so she her first

11:29

lesson was January 21. By

11:29

October of 2022, she flew to

11:35

14,000 feet, which is was a

11:35

world record for women. But this

11:40

was a time where not many women

11:40

were doing this

11:42

and there was no canopy,

11:42

right? I mean, this is an open

11:45

open biplane. She

11:47

was the 16th woman in the

11:47

US to be issued a pilot's

11:50

license. So pretty much every

11:50

time she goes on the air she

11:53

sent in some kind of record, and

11:53

not just record for women, but

11:57

sometimes, you know, doing

11:57

things that a lot of people

12:00

hadn't done just because you

12:00

know, this flying had been

12:04

around for 20 years. So she got

12:04

a little notoriety by by doing

12:11

things like that, breaking these

12:11

altitude records and like you

12:16

said, there was probably no

12:16

canopy, so going high was

12:19

probably couldn't go to 60,000

12:19

feet if you wanted to, you know,

12:24

it was just not pressurized or

12:24

anything like that. Well in 1927

12:29

That was when Charles Lindbergh

12:29

flew did his solo flight across

12:33

the Atlantic. And that was you

12:33

know, that captivated the US and

12:40

and then they were gonna have a

12:40

woman do that next well,

12:44

actually, the idea was to not

12:44

have a woman fly solo across the

12:49

Atlantic but just be flown

12:49

across the Atlantic. And this

12:54

woman, Amy guest was going to do

12:54

it and she got it got cold feet.

12:58

And she said, I'm not going to

12:58

do this. But we got to find the

13:00

right woman with the right image

13:00

to do this. You mean be flown as

13:05

in be a passenger? Yes. So

13:05

that's exactly what happened in

13:08

1928. Two guys, Wilmer salts and

13:08

Louis Gordon flew from

13:14

Newfoundland to Wales. And

13:14

that's kind of the shortest

13:18

distance between US and Britain

13:18

crossed the Atlantic right

13:21

Newfoundland, okay, as far east

13:21

as you can get North America and

13:25

Wales is pretty far west. So. So

13:25

those two guys and with Amelia

13:31

Earhart as a passenger, and in

13:31

her words, she was like baggage,

13:36

like a sack of potatoes. She

13:36

wasn't happy with this, but they

13:38

did. And if you go to Wales,

13:38

there's a plaque that says that

13:42

Amelia Earhart was the first

13:42

woman to fly across the the

13:46

Atlantic, which is true, she did

13:46

flew, but she didn't do any of

13:50

the piloting. She just rode like

13:50

a sack of potatoes. How long do

13:53

you think that flight took from

13:53

Newfoundland to Wales in 1928?

13:58

Let's see, it's probably

13:58

about so I'm gonna say 16 hours,

14:07

20 hours and 40 minutes.

14:07

Okay. I think that flight

14:12

nowadays, maybe like six hours

14:12

or something? Yeah. But she was

14:19

even though she wasn't happy and

14:19

she thought she was a sack of

14:22

potatoes. She was treated like a

14:22

hero. When she came back, they

14:28

had a ticker tape parade. She

14:28

got to meet the President

14:31

President Coolidge at the time.

14:31

And while she was in, I guess,

14:35

she she flew from Wales. Then

14:35

she flew on to England. And

14:41

while she was there, she bought

14:41

a plane owned by an Irish pilot,

14:46

a woman pilot named Mary Heath,

14:46

who was the first bridge pilot,

14:52

and she had that plane shipped

14:52

back to the US. So she was

14:55

acquiring planes. She was just

14:55

all all in and she had big

14:59

ideas. As for the future, but

14:59

you know, she kind of looked

15:02

like Charles Lindbergh and he

15:02

was called Lucky Lindy. I don't

15:05

know if you knew that was his

15:05

nickname. And then I have heard

15:08

that Yes. And she was they call

15:08

her lady Lindy. Just a little

15:12

insulting, I think so yeah. She

15:12

was kind of always in his

15:16

shadow. You know, they, they

15:16

also called her Queen of the

15:19

air, which is, I think, much

15:19

cooler name, Queen of the air.

15:23

And the other thing she started

15:23

doing was promoting products.

15:26

The advertising executives

15:26

really saw something in her. She

15:32

started doing ads for things

15:32

like Lucky Strike cigarettes, of

15:38

course. But actually, that call

15:38

actually cost her. I think she

15:43

was supposed to do a magazine

15:43

spread with McCall's and they

15:48

cancelled it after they saw the

15:48

Lucky Strike ad but they wanted

15:52

a certain image and but she

15:52

started selling a women's

15:56

clothing line at Macy. She had

15:56

her own kind of wrinkle proof

15:59

washable clothing line. And it

15:59

was really important to her that

16:03

like the that both women all

16:03

over the US started dressing

16:08

like her and honorable shoes.

16:08

Yeah, yeah, she was. Like I said

16:13

she was kind of a badass at the

16:13

time. She was also the luggage.

16:18

There was a luggage line, which

16:18

totally makes sense, right?

16:21

But she was she was an

16:21

early social media influencer.

16:25

I wouldn't say social

16:25

media. But sure. I mean, she

16:28

became the Associate Editor

16:28

editor at cosmopolitan. I mean,

16:32

she was a woman that people were

16:32

like, yeah, why not? She worked

16:37

for TWA, the early versions of

16:37

TWA to promote air travel. And

16:42

while they were doing this, you

16:42

know, they were getting

16:44

commercial air travel off the

16:44

ground. So she, they were afraid

16:47

that women would be afraid to do

16:47

this. So she would she worked at

16:52

TWA tried to promote women's

16:52

travel.

16:56

It's as easy as being a

16:56

sack of potatoes.

16:59

Maybe I don't know if that

16:59

was that was their first

17:02

advertising line and Bad,

17:02

bad, bad.

17:05

But I'm sure there was a

17:05

lot of I mean, I'm not sure if I

17:08

was running the 1920s. If I

17:08

would have been all in on

17:13

commercial air travel, I guess

17:14

it would almost be like

17:14

today. If you had the

17:17

opportunity if you know if money

17:17

weren't a problem, would you go

17:21

up into space?

17:22

Are you asking me? Yeah,

17:22

probably not.

17:26

Okay, then you probably wouldn't have flown on a plane back back then. I'm not

17:29

sure it was. It's that

17:29

similar? Because there. I mean,

17:32

only like billionaires can do

17:32

that now.

17:36

Or I just said if money

17:36

were no object. Oh, right.

17:38

Right, right. But

17:39

I think this was like TWA

17:39

was trying to get rich. But not

17:45

that rich.

17:46

But you said you said the

17:46

the barrier was going to be

17:48

fear. Right. And that was part

17:48

of what she was trying to do was

17:51

say it's safe. It's safer than

17:51

driving your car. It's safer

17:53

than this. It's safer than that.

17:53

You know, it's I don't know, I

17:57

think I would feel more more

17:57

safe going up into space than I

18:02

would going down into like an

18:02

explorer submarine. You know,

18:05

with that catastrophe?

18:07

I might, I might compare

18:07

it more tour to like getting in

18:10

a driverless car today. Like,

18:10

you know, in some cities, you

18:15

know, like, I think Phoenix has

18:15

Ubers Yeah, driver.

18:18

Yeah. My daughter's My

18:18

daughter has been in one she she

18:20

said it was pretty good

18:20

experience.

18:23

Yeah. So I think that's

18:23

more they're trying to adopt

18:26

this where everybody's going to

18:26

do it in a couple of decades.

18:29

But the first adopters are are

18:29

going to be the ones that really

18:33

have to, you know, tackle that.

18:33

That? That fear so yeah.

18:38

So so, so easy a sack of

18:38

potatoes can do it is not how

18:41

they did it. That was when when

18:43

your daughter did that?

18:43

Was it cheap, or was it

18:46

expensive? Or was it the same as

18:46

a regular? She'd do it like

18:50

Uber.

18:51

I know she's she's at

18:51

school in Arizona in Phoenix and

18:55

she said there's I forget the

18:55

name of it. It's a it's a it's a

18:59

different brand name. It's not

18:59

Uber it's got another brand name

19:02

that that they that they have

19:02

for these driverless cars that

19:06

will take you places it's like

19:06

an Uber, but there's no driver.

19:10

And it rides on regular

19:10

roads and freeways. Yeah, we

19:13

saw. I've been out there

19:13

a couple of times, and I've seen

19:15

them driving around. Man. It's

19:15

weird. It's weird. It's weird to

19:18

see a car go by with no no

19:18

driver. And

19:24

yeah, that is strange. But

19:24

that's probably what it was

19:26

like, because I mean, looking,

19:26

looking back. I mean, it was

19:32

just natural that that was going

19:32

to happen, but that we didn't

19:35

have the first people doing

19:35

that. So anyways, 1928 she

19:39

becomes the first woman to fly

19:39

solo across North America and

19:43

back and back. So she flew coast

19:43

to coast and back, New York to

19:49

LA or I don't know exactly what

19:49

cities it was, but basically,

19:52

you know, coast to coast and

19:52

back in 1931. She said another

19:57

world altitude record of 18,004

19:57

100 feet. I'm not sure if there

20:02

was a canopy with what the

20:02

situation was at that point,

20:08

but, you know, we're getting

20:08

higher and higher here. And in

20:12

1932, she was going to fly from

20:12

Newfoundland to Paris. She

20:18

actually landed in Northern

20:18

Ireland in a farmer's yard. And

20:24

he said, wow, have you come far?

20:24

And she said, Yeah, from

20:29

America. That was a big deal,

20:29

though. 48 hours and 56 minutes.

20:34

So she's, you know, just in a

20:34

few years, you see how, how that

20:38

time has really shaped five

20:38

hours. For that time, she became

20:42

friends with Eleanor Roosevelt

20:42

pass the subject of dirt nap

20:46

city. Eleanor Roosevelt, she

20:46

actually convinced Eleanor

20:50

Roosevelt to take up flying. She

20:50

never got past a student permit.

20:56

She never was able to fly by

20:56

herself. She quit. But they

21:00

became good friends. And that

21:00

was kind of all the rage back

21:04

then was to be like, Amelia

21:04

Earhart. Well, in 1935. So now

21:11

she's, what 38 years old. She

21:11

flew, she became the first ever

21:17

to fly solo from Honolulu to

21:17

Oakland. Okay, oh, wow. That's a

21:22

long ways, right? That is a long

21:22

way. If you look at a map, if

21:26

you look on a globe or a map,

21:26

and you see where Hawaii is,

21:29

it's just a little speck in the

21:29

middle of the ocean, right? Just

21:33

between just between, you know,

21:33

the US and Australia, you can't

21:38

even really see it on a globe.

21:38

It's so what's

21:41

what's amazing, even

21:41

beyond just the actual piloting,

21:45

because I would imagine that was

21:45

probably pretty monotonous. Once

21:48

you're up in the air, you know,

21:48

you just kind of holding the

21:50

stick and making sure you stay

21:50

at an altitude. It's the

21:53

navigation, right? Because they

21:53

didn't have GPS, they didn't

21:56

have computers, they didn't have

21:56

enough anything. You know,

21:59

they're they're navigating by

21:59

charts. And just real quick.

22:03

I've been watching the show on

22:03

Apple, Apple, you know, it's an

22:07

apple original called masters of

22:07

the air. Have you heard of that?

22:12

I have. It's, it's Tom Hanks is

22:12

one of the executive producers.

22:16

And it's about World War two

22:16

pilots who flew the Flying

22:21

Fortress, they call him the

22:21

forts. And it's a great show. If

22:24

you like aviation, it's it's

22:24

kind of being compared to band

22:29

being compared to Band of

22:29

Brothers. I don't think it's as

22:32

good as Band of Brothers because

22:32

Band of Brothers was amazing.

22:35

But it is a really interesting

22:35

take. And they do focus a lot on

22:40

the navigators and how what a

22:40

tough job they had. I mean,

22:43

imagine you've got all these

22:43

maps, you've got all these plot

22:47

points that you're plotting,

22:47

you're looking at stars, you're

22:49

looking at the sun, and you're

22:49

being shot at you're being shook

22:51

around, then it's cold. As a

22:51

matter of fact, one of the

22:55

pilots in one of the episodes

22:55

gets frostbite pretty severe

22:59

frostbite, because he has to

22:59

take his coat off because he's

23:02

been shot and, you know, anyway,

23:02

it's it's a, if you like

23:05

aviation masters of the air,

23:05

Apple. Good show. And

23:09

this was 10 years before

23:09

that, you know? 10 Yeah,

23:12

yeah. So the navigation

23:12

was even rougher. Yeah,

23:14

yeah. She also was able to

23:14

fly from solo from LA to Mexico

23:20

City, and Mexico City to New

23:20

York. So basically, every time

23:24

she's getting on a plane, she's

23:24

setting a record big on these

23:27

long distance flights and

23:27

getting really good at it. Some

23:31

of these she was, I think, the

23:31

one from Mexico City in New

23:34

York. She said the last couple

23:34

hours were so relaxing. She

23:37

turned on the radio and just

23:37

listened to the New York

23:41

Philharmonic on the way and it

23:41

was so it was so relaxing, so I

23:45

don't know if that was

23:45

braggadocio but she was just

23:47

really like loving this stuff.

23:47

But her goal was to fly around

23:51

the world others had done this

23:51

other people had actually

23:57

circumnavigated the globe but

23:57

the way she wanted to do it

24:00

would have been the longest

24:00

because she wanted to basically

24:03

follow the equator at the at the

24:03

at the Okay, why this points of

24:07

they're not exactly follow the

24:07

equator but pretty much follow

24:11

it as close as possible. Yeah, I

24:11

mean, if you think about it, if

24:15

you think of a globe you could

24:15

fly around the world at the very

24:17

top and it's not very you could

24:17

walk around the world at the

24:20

very top it but the wider you

24:20

get the harder it becomes. And

24:27

there's long stretches of ocean

24:27

too that you have to have to

24:31

navigate also Yeah. So she was

24:31

able to get the funding she was

24:36

a visiting professor at Purdue

24:36

on just not about anything. I

24:46

don't remember what what she

24:46

exactly was a professor in but

24:51

she was able to, to get produced

24:51

financing to the Lockheed build

24:57

the plane and then Purdue pay

24:57

for it. And she chose this guy

25:02

named Harry Manning as her

25:02

navigator. And it was just gonna

25:05

be the two of them. And he

25:05

wasn't. He was I think he was a

25:10

ship navigator. And she had

25:10

actually been the navigator on

25:14

one of the ships that she took

25:14

back when she flew a plane

25:17

across the Atlantic. And then

25:17

they went on some test runs. And

25:21

it turns out like, every time

25:21

they went, he like be off by a

25:24

little bit, like by like, 20

25:24

miles or something. And she's

25:28

like,

25:29

Yeah, and again, that's

25:29

just shows how important the

25:31

navigator is. Right?

25:33

She's like, he's not a

25:33

great navigator, but he knows

25:35

Morse code better than anybody.

25:35

So she brought in this other guy

25:40

named Fred Noonan, and he was he

25:40

trained Pan Am pilots, you know,

25:45

commercial airline Air flight

25:45

was starting to take off. So she

25:50

figured with Noonan as the

25:50

navigator and Harry Manning is

25:54

the guy who would do Morse code

25:54

that would work out so the plan

25:59

was to use Noonan for the first

25:59

leg from Hawaii to this place

26:05

called Howland Island. Howland

26:05

Island is this tiny, tiny, tiny

26:09

island. But you know, when I say

26:09

fly around the world understand

26:12

that this isn't on one tank of

26:12

gas, constantly shopping and

26:16

read. Yeah, constantly stuff.

26:16

Howard

26:18

Hughes had said he had

26:18

set a world record for going

26:21

around the world, but he had to

26:21

stop many times. Oh, yeah. But

26:25

he didn't do it at the equator.

26:27

Right. So there's this

26:27

place called Holland Island.

26:30

It's a shiny like, basically a

26:30

landing strip. And she was gonna

26:34

fly it out Howland Island from

26:34

there, that's a long stretch.

26:37

That's like a couple of 1000

26:37

miles from Hawaii to Howland

26:41

Island. Then she was going to

26:41

use Harry Manning to go from

26:45

there to Australia. And then she

26:45

was going to do the rest by

26:47

herself.

26:48

So those guys who just

26:48

parachute out. Thanks, guys.

26:52

Yeah,

26:52

they took a ship back from

26:52

Australia or whatever, wherever.

26:55

Oh,

26:55

you mean literally. They weren't going to go on with her. They were just going to help her

26:57

get from Hawaii to Australia.

27:00

Yeah. Because

27:01

the tough part was that

27:01

stretch there. I guess the

27:03

navigation was really tough. And

27:03

you have to hit this island.

27:07

Yeah, there's no there's

27:07

no points of reference in the

27:09

ocean. It's just yeah, the

27:09

ocean. And

27:11

she wasn't a navigator.

27:11

And she didn't know Morse code.

27:15

That Well, I don't know. So,

27:15

March 1937. She takes off she

27:19

goes from Oakland to Honolulu.

27:19

And it's Amelia Harry Manning,

27:26

Fred Noonan. And then she

27:26

brought along this guy who was a

27:29

stuntman to in Hollywood, who

27:29

was her technical adviser. His

27:32

name was Paul Manse. So they go

27:32

to Hawaii, they get from Oakland

27:36

to Hawaii. And they get to

27:36

Hawaii and the propeller was all

27:40

jacked up. And they tried to go

27:40

on to the next that Holland

27:44

island. But before they took

27:44

off, the tire blew, landing gear

27:48

collapsed. And they had to

27:48

cancel the rest of the trip. And

27:51

Harry Manning's

27:52

a Lockheed plane this

27:52

night by Lockheed,

27:55

Harry Manning, the the so

27:55

called navigator, the original

27:59

navigator, he says I'm out. I'm

27:59

not doing this again. You're on

28:04

your own, if you want to try

28:04

this again. So he's out. And so

28:08

that was in March of 1937. By

28:08

June, they were ready to try it

28:12

again. But this time, they

28:12

decided to not make a big deal

28:16

about it not tell a bunch of

28:16

people because you know, if you

28:19

don't make it, everyone's

28:19

disappointed. So they go from

28:23

Oakland to Miami. So now you're

28:23

going the other way, right? You

28:27

go from Oakland to Miami. And

28:27

then it was just Amelia and Fred

28:33

Noonan. And then from there,

28:33

they went from Miami to South

28:38

America. And then they went to

28:38

Africa. And then they went to

28:41

India and then they went to

28:41

Southeast Asia. By now people

28:44

are knowing that they're they're

28:44

going to do this. But they I

28:48

think once they got to Miami,

28:48

they said Alright, where are our

28:51

plan is to go around the world.

28:51

So they're there in New Guinea.

28:54

Papa New Guinea on June 29.

28:54

Right, so it took almost a month

28:58

to get there. They had 22,000

28:58

miles down 7000 to go. But that

29:04

was the longest stretch of the

29:04

trip. You had to go from New

29:07

Guinea to that Howland Island.

29:07

And then Howland Island to

29:11

Honolulu and then on to Oakland,

29:11

but they had already done that

29:14

part in reverse. So basically

29:14

the park that they had to go was

29:18

practically the park they had

29:18

already done and reverse. It was

29:21

going to take about 20 hours. So

29:21

eight hours into that flight was

29:28

the last they were ever heard

29:28

from. Wow, it's just it was just

29:32

the two of them. Amelia and Fred

29:32

Noonan. So there's been lots of

29:38

in the, you know, almost 100

29:38

years since then. Lots of that

29:45

was 1937. So like 97 Wow, 85

29:45

years ago. There's a lot of

29:51

speculation on what happened a

29:51

lot of aviation experts, a lot

29:56

of divers tried to figure out

29:56

what happened. Obviously, there

30:01

was a lot of conspiracy theories

30:01

that something like this when

30:05

something somebody just

30:05

disappears conspiracy, there's a

30:08

come out. They had a cutter ship

30:08

at Howland Island to help her

30:13

out and they were there to

30:13

communicate with theirs. They

30:15

had radio communications. And

30:15

that was really frustrating. It

30:19

wasn't successful. They heard

30:19

her, but she couldn't hear them.

30:24

Which was

30:24

she thought she didn't

30:24

realize they were it's kind of

30:27

like when you and I are first

30:27

logging in to do our recordings

30:30

and we're making faces at each

30:30

other and you know, tapping our

30:33

headphones and microphones. Can

30:33

you imagine

30:35

how often that would have

30:35

been to hear her saying things

30:38

like we're running out of gas?

30:38

We don't we don't, we don't have

30:42

much gas left. Can't hear you

30:42

guys. And she would even do

30:45

things like, she's like, I'm

30:45

gonna whistle I'm gonna, I'm

30:48

gonna have a constant stream of

30:48

whistle just so you can hear me.

30:52

So she can whistle and she'd be

30:52

like, I don't know why I can't

30:55

hear you guys. But you know,

30:55

we're running out of gas. And I

30:58

hope we can hit the island

31:01

that our Bluetooth

31:01

headset was out of battery.

31:03

And then she she didn't

31:03

have much technology going on.

31:07

But she was they think what

31:07

happened was she was she kept

31:11

circling the island and ran out

31:11

of gas trying to define it was a

31:15

very small, small spot. Also,

31:15

the time zones weren't synced

31:20

up. I mean, back then we didn't

31:20

really, you know, because people

31:25

weren't traveling around the

31:25

world very much. You can imagine

31:28

that it's not like time zones

31:28

were very standard.

31:31

nunim was supposed to be

31:31

a navigator. He was like the,

31:35

the the better navigator.

31:37

And he was the one that

31:37

trained all those pilots. But

31:40

you know, you're in the

31:40

wilderness, you're in places

31:43

that people hadn't hadn't been

31:43

with planes before. They had

31:46

just installed a new technology,

31:46

a new direction system. They had

31:51

different bands that they could

31:51

talk on. But the training wasn't

31:56

real great for that. And the

31:56

technology was new. And I don't

32:00

know something. Somebody just

32:00

said it was really poor planning

32:04

and poor execution. Also, some

32:04

people say that they thought

32:08

they saw that when she took off

32:08

that she might have lost an

32:12

antenna, you know, which might

32:14

have might have explained

32:14

why she could communicate on the

32:17

radio,

32:18

tons of speculation. They

32:18

had exhaustive search efforts.

32:21

They spent like $4 million

32:21

trying to find her. They never

32:24

found her and never found

32:24

Noonan. They never found the

32:27

plane. And, and the water there

32:27

just to give you an idea of how

32:33

much of a needle in a haystack

32:33

This is. The water is 18,000

32:36

feet deep. Dang. Okay, so she

32:36

it's as deep as she was high,

32:42

you know, off the ground.

32:44

And isn't 5000 feet is a

32:44

mile?

32:48

Yeah. 200 Yeah, yeah. So

32:48

So

32:51

it's about three miles

32:51

deep. Yeah, a little more than

32:53

three miles deep. Yeah. Wow.

32:56

But just a few weeks ago,

32:56

as we're recording this in late

33:00

January of 2024. They think they

33:00

found the plane. Recently, just

33:08

a few weeks ago, they think they

33:08

found the plane using sonar. And

33:13

if they're gonna they're gonna

33:13

take one of those submersibles

33:16

down. It's kind of like the

33:16

Titanic. I mean, it's like it's

33:19

as deep as that thing is

33:21

sitting down at the

33:21

bottom of a very deep part of

33:24

the ocean. Yeah,

33:25

there's this submersible

33:25

company out of Charleston, South

33:27

Carolina, where they think they

33:27

found it using sonar. They're

33:30

gonna go check it out. And if

33:30

it's what if it is the her? Her

33:36

plane? It's within 100 miles of

33:36

Howland Island.

33:41

Wow, man. Yeah, I

33:42

mean, she was right there.

33:42

Yeah. And like I said, I don't

33:46

I'm not sure what the weather

33:46

was like. But I think she just

33:49

couldn't find it. And she kept

33:49

circling it and then she was

33:52

running out of gas, they use the

33:52

same remember when they take

33:55

that trip before the other going

33:55

the other way. They had four

34:00

people there. And they only had

34:00

to this times they tried to

34:04

figure out how much gas they

34:04

needed based on two fewer

34:07

people. And they tried to do all

34:07

these really remedial

34:11

calculations compared to what

34:11

you would have today. Right?

34:13

That would tell you the exact

34:13

amount of fuel that you need. I

34:16

mean, they're just estimating

34:16

how much fuel they need. And

34:21

they might have just not had

34:21

enough had enough or because

34:25

they were circling so much, they

34:25

might have just miscalculated

34:28

it. So in terms of the

34:28

conspiracy theories, the most

34:34

popular one was that the

34:34

Japanese captured her or that

34:38

the Japanese shot her down. I

34:38

mean, this was lead up to World

34:41

War Two. Yes, was there was

34:41

some, some people think that she

34:48

was shut down by the Japanese.

34:48

There was some people think that

34:51

she was captured by the Japanese

34:51

and there was an unsolved

34:55

mysteries back in the 90s where

34:55

they interviewed a lady who said

35:00

She witnessed her and Noonan

35:00

being executed by the Japanese.

35:05

But that was 2700 miles away

35:05

where they were supposed to be,

35:10

I just can't imagine. The as

35:10

slow as they were flying, I

35:15

can't imagine that they wouldn't

35:15

would have ended up. And her

35:18

last communication, she was

35:18

saying we're running out of gas,

35:21

I can't imagine she'd end up

35:21

3000 miles away.

35:24

But that was it, it was

35:24

really, really bad.

35:28

Or unless they were really

35:28

good swimmers. I just can't

35:31

imagine any of that. But that

35:31

was a very popular conspiracy

35:34

theory for a while. One of my

35:34

favorite conspiracy theories,

35:39

though, is that she survived and

35:39

moved to New Jersey and changed

35:43

her name to Irene Bolam. And

35:43

that was actually a very popular

35:48

conspiracy theory so much more

35:48

that this lady named Irene

35:51

Bolam, who was actually a pilot

35:51

in New Jersey, who used to run

35:56

with the same crowd used to run

35:56

with Snooki, and Amelia Earhart,

36:01

and all those people, but she

36:01

looked a lot like Amelia

36:04

Earhart. And in the 1970s, she

36:04

kind of was at some autograph

36:10

show or something. Gets the

36:10

rumor came that, you know,

36:13

that's really Amelia Earhart.

36:13

And she ended up having to sue

36:19

somebody for for libel or

36:19

slander, saying, you know,

36:26

because people wouldn't Quit

36:26

bothering her saying she was

36:29

really Amelia Earhart, this

36:29

lady. Wow. So the idea that she

36:32

kind of pulled in all this and,

36:32

and changed her name and moved

36:36

away. I think whenever somebody

36:36

disappears, that's always, it's

36:40

always a possibility that people

36:40

want to say is, oh, they

36:43

probably just got tired of the

36:43

rat race and just decided to

36:47

change their name, but there's

36:47

no reason that she would have

36:50

done that. I mean, she was

36:50

trying to get a goal

36:52

accomplished.

36:53

Yeah, it doesn't seem

36:53

like it doesn't seem like

36:55

somebody who is that close to

36:55

setting a record? Even if even

36:59

if she failed, and she had been

36:59

rescued? It seems like she would

37:02

have tried again. You know,

37:03

I don't know why people

37:03

were so obsessed with that

37:05

theory. But people just, you

37:05

know, want to like I said,

37:08

Elvis, you know, there's a rumor

37:08

that Elvis, you ever heard the

37:11

rumor that almost is in the

37:11

movie Home Alone? No,

37:16

I never had which which

37:16

one home? Because that's the

37:19

best. In

37:20

Home Alone one. When when

37:20

the mom is standing at the

37:24

airport counter with John Candy

37:24

when she first meets John Candy.

37:28

There's a guy.

37:30

I've never seen home

37:30

alone. Are you serious? But go

37:32

ahead. I haven't know. And we

37:36

talked about this before.

37:36

You didn't, we've died. I didn't

37:42

know you didn't seen it. So

37:42

there's a there's a guy standing

37:46

in the background. And he's kind

37:46

of too prominent to be an extra.

37:49

He's just kind of in it a lot.

37:49

But he's apparently guys a tall

37:53

guy. And he's got a beard. And

37:53

he kind of looks like maybe like

37:57

Elvis would have looked in 1990.

37:57

But but there's there was a

38:01

rumor that that was Elvis for a

38:01

long time. And of course, when I

38:05

watched the movie, I can't take

38:05

my eyes off that. Like why?

38:09

Yeah,

38:10

that's your focus now.

38:11

So you know, in terms of a

38:11

legacy for this amazing woman,

38:16

Amelia Earhart, feminist icon,

38:16

right? I mean, probably one of

38:20

the most famous women of the

38:20

20th century, gave kind of a

38:25

spirit of can do attitude and a

38:25

country where that was the

38:29

attitude that was really the

38:29

Personality of 20th century

38:33

America was just so we could do

38:33

anything we set our mind to a

38:36

no, no goal is, is too big, you

38:36

know. And then, and what's

38:41

always amazed me is that, you

38:41

know, you go in, in 70 years

38:45

from less than 70 years from the

38:45

first flight to landing on the

38:53

moon. amazing to me.

38:55

Yeah. Amazing.

38:59

But, you know, by World

38:59

War Two 1000 women were in that

39:04

what they called the wasps, the

39:04

women air for Air Force Service

39:07

Pilots. So they were mechanics.

39:07

They were pilots. Yeah, we're

39:11

taking off and I don't know if

39:11

it's in that movie. sure that

39:14

you're watching.

39:15

You know, there's

39:15

actually there's actually a

39:17

museum for that. Just this weird

39:17

coincidence, I was contacted by

39:21

a lady who runs that museum, the

39:21

Wasp museum to potentially do

39:29

some work for her. It never

39:29

ended up happening, but I want

39:32

to say it's near Houston or

39:32

somewhere in Texas. Oh, really?

39:38

Yeah.

39:40

Oh, I have to check it

39:40

out. Wonder why it would be you

39:43

can look it up

39:44

Museum. Yeah, national

39:44

Wasp museum Sweetwater, Texas

39:50

that's in your Dallas, I

39:50

think. Yeah, not

39:53

Sweetwater near

39:53

Sugarland, but Sweetwater. Yeah,

39:57

that is the women air Air Force

39:57

Service pilots of World War Two.

40:03

And but

40:03

imagine there was 1000

40:03

Women in that, you know, and I'm

40:07

sure that Amelia Earhart was

40:07

directly responsible for, for

40:11

many, if not most of those women

40:11

wanting to get into aviation. I

40:18

think that's really cool.

40:18

Absolutely. In 1967 on the 30th

40:22

anniversary of, of Amelia hearts

40:22

fatal flight, and Pellegrino

40:28

flew similar aircraft and did

40:28

the same flight path and

40:33

accomplished it. Okay. And then

40:33

in 1997 1997, San Antonio

40:41

business woman named Linda Finch

40:41

retraced it did it again. And I

40:47

don't know if anybody's had any

40:47

plans for the 100th anniversary,

40:51

which is some 13 years from now,

40:51

but I bet they do something big

40:57

for I think it's, it's, you

40:57

know, a damn shame that her life

41:02

was cut short this way. But, you

41:02

know, like so many people whose

41:07

life is cut short doing

41:07

something so kind of heroic and

41:11

tragic. You know, the legends,

41:11

the myths, all that stuff

41:16

becomes even more pronounced.

41:19

Yeah, it amplifies. It

41:19

amplifies their legendary pneus.

41:23

Like when they Yeah,

41:24

absolutely. And like I

41:24

said, you know, she reminds me a

41:27

lot of baby teachers in the

41:27

areas and just kind of in a time

41:31

where women were constantly

41:31

being told they couldn't do

41:34

stuff. Proven them wrong. So

41:34

kudos to Amelia Earhart, yeah.

41:41

Pour one out for Amelia.

41:44

Well, that's all I got,

41:44

man. Well,

41:47

that was great. That was

41:47

great. I actually only knew that

41:51

she had been a pilot and she had

41:51

been lost at sea, or, you know,

41:54

her plane had never been found,

41:54

or maybe it has at this point,

41:57

but up until 2024 had never been

41:57

found. And so that was great. It

42:01

was right up there with the

42:01

classic dirt nap city. Somebody

42:06

you know a little bit about,

42:06

they're famous. They're

42:08

interesting, but you want to

42:08

know more. And that's what we do

42:11

here. They've

42:11

made a couple of movies

42:11

about her but nothing that's

42:14

been I don't think too heralded.

42:14

So, according to Wikipedia,

42:22

there's a reference to her in

42:22

The Simpsons video game from

42:27

about 20 years ago where Mr.

42:27

Burns had her plane shot down

42:31

because she said he was said she

42:31

was getting too big for her job

42:35

spurs.

42:38

Of course, Mr. Burns,

42:38

Monty

42:43

always comes back to the Simpsons. You

42:45

know, you've made it when

42:45

you're referencing the Simpsons

42:47

video game. All

42:49

right, man. It's good,

42:49

good. sharing this with you.

42:53

Enjoyed

42:53

it. And if you like women

42:53

who broke the mold, check out

42:57

Babe Didrikson Zaharias check

42:57

out Eleanor Roosevelt. And you

43:02

can also check out Howard Hughes

43:02

if you like aviators, so you

43:05

know lots lots of tangential

43:05

stuff for you to check out here

43:08

on dirt nap city. Alright, buy

43:17

him out on the ocean

43:17

Justice back against the sky.

43:22

Amelia Hawk flying out there

43:22

with a partner Captain Noonan on

43:29

the second of July blainville in

43:29

the ocean far away