Did you know that Amelia Earhart was one of the most powerful women in American History? Did you know that she set many records for her flight achievements? Did you also know that her death in 1937 is a complete mystery, until now?

Amelia Earhart was born on July 24, 1897 in Atchison Kansas. From an early age, her parents considered her the ringleader of their three daughters. At the age of 10, Earhart saw her first aircraft at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines. Her father later noted that Miss Earhart was not amused by the aircraft and declined a ride on it at the time. She completed high school at Chicago’s Hyde Park High School in 1916. After graduating, she attended a junior college program in Pennsylvania before becoming a nurse’s aide for the Red Cross. In 1920, Earhart received a ride in an aircraft from Frank Hawks which sparked her interest in aviation.

In 1932, Earhart became the first woman to complete a solo transatlantic flight. Later that year, she became the first women to fly solo around the world. In 1937, she set off on her second attempt to fly coast to coast with Fred Noonan. After more than 25 days of flight, their plane disappeared near Howland island in the pacific. After two weeks of searching for the missing pilots, the Coast Guard called off their investigation.

Almost eighty years after Earhart’s disappearance, Ric Gilespie, the director of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, has stated that he believes Ms. Earhart spent her last days as a castaway on a desolate Pacific island. The group has found similarities between the pilot and the partial skeleton of a castaway discovered on a remote Pacific island in 1940. They used techniques with forensic anthropologists and imaging experts to compare measurements of the castaway skeleton’s arm bones to a photo of Earhart, finding that the measurements were “virtually identical.” This new discovery does not necessarily mean that the bones belong to Earhart, but researchers say that it provides significant evidence as they continue researching this topic.