Charles Lindbergh, whose full name was Charles Augustus Lindbergh and was also called Charles A Lindbergh, was born on 4 February 1902 in Michigan, US. He died on 26 August 1974 in Maui, Hawaii. Lindbergh was an American aviator and one of the best-known figures in aeronautical history. He is remembered for the first non-stop solo flight over the Atlantic Ocean, from New York to Paris, on 20 – 21 May 1927.
Early Life
Lindbergh learned how to fly planes in 1922 after he quit college. He started in aviation as a barnstormer. Barnstormers were pilots who travelled the country doing aerobatic stunts and selling airplane rides.
Charles enlisted in the United States Army Air Service in 1924 however the Army didn’t need active-duty pilots at this time so very soon Lindbergh returned to civilian aviation. In 1925 he began flying routes between Chicago and St Louis as an air mail pilot.
Medal Of Honour
Lindbergh received the highest US military decoration from President Calvin Coolidge, the Medal of Honor, together with the Distinguished Flying Cross for his transatlantic flight. In the middle of 1927, he was promoted to the position of colonel in the US Army Air Corps Reserve. Also, the flight also netted him the main French order of merit, civil or – alternatively – military, the Legion of Honor.
This achievement spurred major global interest in both commercial aviation and air mail, which revolutionised the aviation industry all over the world (a phenomenon dubbed the “Lindbergh boom“). He devoted much time and effort towards promoting such activity.
Lindbergh was honoured as Time‘s very first Man of the Year in 1928 and was appointed to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1929 by President Herbert Hoover. He was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal in 1930. In 1931, Lindbergh and French surgeon Alexis Carrel started working on inventing the first perfusion pump, which is acknowledged as making future heart surgeries and organ transplantation potential.
The Lindbergh Kidnapping
In March 1932 the Lindberghs’ two-year-old son, named Charles Augustus, Jr., was kidnapped from their house situated near Hopewell, New Jersey, and a very short time later was found murdered. Partly owing to Lindbergh’s global popularity, this turned out to be the most talked-about crime of the 1930s, and it was a main subject of newspaper interest.
In January 1935 Lindbergh himself gave testimony against Bruno Hauptmann, who was a German American carpenter accused of having executed the kidnapping and murder of the child. Hauptmann was found guilty of the crime and sentenced to death however the sensation of the trial and credible threats against the life of their son Jon forced the Lindberghs to take refuge in Europe in December 1935. In April 1936, having depleted his appeals, Hauptmann was executed.
Lindbergh The Environmentalist
As he became older, Lindbergh became more and more concerned that modern technology was taking a serious toll on the world’s flora and fauna. So, he became a steadfast conservationist, advocating for a great deal of environmental causes that were close to his heart. However, if he were alive today he would probably approve of online casino NZ games as they use far less power and resources than a land based casino, and don’t require any gas to get there.
