At 7:52 in the morning of 20 May 1927, 25-year-old US Air Mail pilot Charles Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field, New York, in the single-engine Spirit of St. Louis, to win the Orteig Prize of 25,000 dollars for the first non-stop flight between New York and Paris. After 33 and a half hours, awake the whole time and flying through fog and storms, he landed at Le Bourget at 10:22 pm on 21 May, greeted by a crowd of 150,000. Others had crossed the Atlantic, but not alone. Lindbergh became the most famous man in the world, and air travel boomed.
Before and after
- 6 March 1927Birth of Gabriel García Márquez
- 12 April 1927Shanghai massacre of 1927
- 16 April 1927Birth of Benedict XVI
- 7 May 1927Construction of San Francisco International Airport
- 21 May 1927Lindbergh flies the Atlantic alone
- 7 June 1927Founding of AS Roma
- from 1 August 1927 to 1 May 1950Chinese Civil War
- 9 August 1927Founding of Mexico men's national football team
- 18 September 1927Founding of CBS
More in Exploration & discovery
- 29 May 1914Birth of Tenzing Norgay
- from 8 August 1914 to 1 January 1917Expedition Endurance
- from 21 November 1915 to 30 August 1916Shackleton's Endurance is crushed by the ice
- 6 January 1919Death of Theodore Roosevelt
- 18 June 1928Death of Roald Amundsen
- 6 March 1937Birth of Valentina Tereshkova
The era
This moment belongs to the Modern era (1914 CE to 1945 CE), world wars and a changing world. You can also browse everything in the 20th century.