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The world moves fast, your workday even faster. Pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data. Microsoft 365 Copilot is your AI assistant for work built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other Microsoft 365 apps you use, helping you quickly write, analyze, create and summarize so you can cut through clutter and clear a path to your best work. Learn more@Microsoft.com M365Copilot this episode is brought to you by Palmolive. Family time isn't just the big moments. It's weeknight dinners, sitting around the table, everyone talking all at once. So when the plates are empty and the sink is full, use Palmolive Ultra. Palmolive's most powerful formula removes up to 99.9% of grease, leaving your dishes sparkling clean. And the new convenient pump makes cleaning even easier so you can spend less time tackling dishes and more time together. Shop now@palmolive.com With Sam's Club, you have the freedom to shop your own way. Curbside pickup delivered to your doorstep. Come in and grab it yourself. Yes, yes, yes. They've got plenty of options. Your call say yes to shopping the way you want. Join now@samsclub.com yes, and you must be 18 years or older to purchase a membership, and membership is subject to qualifications. Visit samsclub.com yes and for details. My grandmother Ina and her sister Evie were two of the first licensed pilots in Wyoming and Montana region and flew trans, mountain and transcontinental flights, particularly during the war when all the men were gone. Evie was one of the safest, most successful mountaineer pilots and my grandmother was trained as a wasp. The women Air Force service pilots there were civilian volunteers in World War II who became the first women to fly US military aircraft. With 1074 women flying over 60 million miles while they were primarily operated within the US to free up male pilots for combat, some, like the seventh Ferrying Group flew to Alaska Siberian border for the Lend Lease program. My grandmother was trained for this program but was never called to that flight due to the atomic bombs dropping and the end of the war. I have a copy of my grandmother's pilot's license and to this day she died. It was the thing that she was the most proud of. I have a dollar bill signed by World War I ace Eddie Rickenbacker that she kept and it was her favorite scene set of stories. She was all fire and adventure. But then she did what women were supposed to do. She got married after the war, became a housewife and part of her faded. She was only ever truly lit up when she talked about being a pilot with that little quote, puddle jumper flight she used to fly. Cultural pressure is a hell of a monster. When I was eight and she was teaching me Gaelic, she was 100 Scottish, she said her two dreams were to fly again and to see Scotland for herself. Her parents had come over to the US Shortly before she was born. She never achieved either of those dreams. Not surprisingly, my grandmother ignited in me a fire and a passion to fly or to do whatever I wanted, like a girl. And as a girl, if I damn well pleased. While I was being taught in church that my only purpose was motherhood, my grandmother was whispering, oh, but what if you could fly? I suppose it's absolutely no surprise to hear that one of my historical heroes is Amelia Earhart. One of my favorite quotes comes from her when she said, there's more to life than being a passenger. Amelia Earhart was more than a pilot. She was a symbol of defiance in an era that told women exactly where they belonged, exactly what they should look like. And the skies were not on the list of places they belonged. Born in 1897, she came of age at a time when aviation itself was still experimental, extremely dangerous, and dominated almost entirely by men. But from the moment she took her first flight, Earhart was hooked. Not just on flying, but pushing the boundaries. She would go on to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, setting records, breaking barriers, and turning herself into a global icon. But Earhart wasn't just chasing headlines. She was deeply committed to expanding opportunities for women. She co founded organizations for female pilots, advocated for equal access in aviation, and used her growing fame to challenge the cultural limitations placed on women in the early 20th century. Amelia is the reason my grandmother, who was born in 1922, was able to fly, desired to fly, believed that she could dream about flying. Amelia understood that visibility mattered and that every mile she flew made it easier for the next woman to fly. Her final journey, in 1937, an attempt to circumnavigate the globe cemented her place in history, not just for the ambition of the mission, but for the mystery that followed it. When Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared over the Pacific, the world was left with unanswered questions that still linger today. Her life became a legend, and her disappearance became one of the most enduring unsolved airline cases of all time. In this episode celebrating Women's Month, we're diving into the life, the legacy, the lasting impact of Amelia Earhart. What she achieved what she risked and why her story still resonates. And towards the end, we're going to briefly ship shift from one group of fearless women in the sky to another. Taking a look at the Soviet Union's night witches pilots who, like Earhart, refused to accept the limits placed on them. A celebration of Women's History Month. The question of oh, but my dear, what if you fly today on flipping tables. All right. I am so glad to be back. If you've been following me on social media, I didn't post a lot about it. I'm going to post a little bit more. I was in Costa Rica for a little over a week with part of my community from here, from Nashville. It was a wellness retreat. My brother took part of it. I was part of the women's group. He was part of the men's group. And the beginning part of the the time there, we didn't really have wi fi, so I was forced to be off my ph phone. It was a great technological detox for me. I spent a lot of time journaling about how I can make my lifestyle healthier as far as taking care of myself better, resting more, more efficient with my work, more, more aware, more cognizant of my tech usage. It was amazing. I came back feeling like a totally different person. I feel like my brain is functioning better, my nervous system feels better. So I'm excited to be back. I'm excited to keep doing this work, but I'm also so excited for the recovery. I did a big breakdown on a lot of what I experienced and what I learned on Patreon. If you'd like to see that. I wanted to share that. Just a couple quick announcements. Again, thank you so much to everyone on Patreon. You're the reason that the show is possible. And if you'd like to sign up for Patreon, we have new merch coming out in April and you will get first access to that. Of course you get the ad free episodes. We had a little bit of a gap in the episodes simply because we lost access to the page briefly. But the page is logged back in so now those will be up there for you as well. And I'm doing popups there usually every week, but at least three times a month where I'm coming in, just talking about life, having a little bit longer form conversation. I'm posting some extra lessons there, some clips of my writing for my upcoming book. So if you want access to any of that patreon.com Monty Mater and like I said, we have new Merch coming out this April that I'm really, really excited for. Some just fun things, some encouraging things, but the main theme being loving each other and being here for us and still enjoying life in the midst of the storm. And I'm so excited for today's episode. I've been thinking about doing an episode on Amelia for a long time, so doing it in March seemed to be the right time to do it. And so I'm going to actually start with her disappearance, what happened that day, and then we're going to go through Amelia's life, the subsequent investigations, and then we're going to talk about the Night Witches, which I think will be fun. Most people have not heard of them, and they are pretty amazing. I'm going to lead this first section with a quote from Amelia. I want to do it because I want to do it it. Women must try things as men have tried, and when they fail, their failures must be but a challenge to others. At 10am on the morning of July 2, 1937, there was a small silver Lockheed Electra 10E that ran down the Runway at the airport in lay what is now Papua New Guinea. Very, very short Runway. The heavily loaded aircraft streaked nearly to the Runway's end before it was able to even get off the ground. And as it became airborne, it wobbled a little bit before it dropped below a cliff edge, so close to the ocean that the propellers kicked up spra. But as it gained sky, it soared into the clouds to be seen for the last time. Of course, the pilot was Amelia Earhart with her navigator, Fred Noonan. On the tropical morning in July, she was within days of achieving the greatest triumph of her career, which was a flight of circumnavigation around the globe, as near to the equator as could possibly be done. So tucked in the back was her navigator, Fred Noonan, recently married, Noonan helped pioneer Pan Americans Trans Pacific flights and also trained other navigators. He was widely respected and revered. He was considered one of the best navigators at the time. And it was claimed that he could do something that was called shoot the sun, which was navigate by measuring the sun's altitude. Standing on his head, of course, that's the joke part, but he was a very, very good navigator. Earhart and Noonan were headed towards Howland Island. This was a very, very small island in the Pacific, barely inhabited, piece of coral really. And it was the third to last stop on their round the world flight. They'd already flown at this point, 22,000 miles and they had 7,000 more to go, and all of it was over open water. In order to get to Howland is needed a 2,500mile journey, and it would be the most difficult of their journey. It would be 18 or more hours across the Pacific to an island that was just 20ft above sea level. They intended to leave lay on June 30, which would have given them plenty of time to make a triumphant return back to California on July 4th, which of course landing on Independence Day would have been really, truly incredible. In fact, Earhart's husband, who was also her publicist, named George Putnam, had already booked a radio commitment for July 5, planning to celebrate that land. But their flight had been delayed for several days. Days the weather was not good. Clouds and winds were blowing the wrong way, was how Earhart put it, in a cable to the New York Herald Tribune. The LAY station had been struggling to pick up radio time signals, which Newman needed to use his chronometers. If the chronometers weren't accurate, he wouldn't be able to determine longitude, which would get them lost. Earhart reported the radio misunderstandings to Putnam in a telegram on June 30, informing him of the delay. She also mentioned just a general comment about personal unfitness, which seems to be relevant and related to Noonan's alcohol problem. Or perhaps she wasn't feeling well. She had not only been flying grueling long days, she was also somehow managing to have time to write dispatches to the Herald Tribune, sometimes as many as 30,000 words. Whatever the issue, Earhart didn't consider it enough to serious enough to cancel the flight. She and Noonan spent June 30 reloading the plane, and it would be carrying nearly its full capacity of fuel, so they needed to get rid of every other ounce of unnecessary weight. They unpacked the whole plane, set aside items that they thought they wouldn't need, like extra maps and spare parts, their clothes and personal belongings. Everything was on the line. In order to make this happen, they left things off the flight that they probably should have kept, such as a flare gun. So the next day, on July 1, Earhart took the Electra out for a short test flight and she was able to use two way communication with the LAY station, but couldn't get a bearing on it. An indication that the direction finder, a crucial tool for determining where the signal was coming from, might not be working properly. And Earhart unfortunately shrugged off this instrument failure. Didn't think it would be serious enough to cancel the flight. They didn't get a clear signal until 10:30 that night and it was three seconds slow. However, on July 2nd of 1937, they were ready to take off. The weather forecast even wasn't ideal. There was partly cloudy skies with dangerous local rain, but they'd flown through worse. So at 10am on July 2, weighted down with enough fuel for this long leg, they ran down the Runway carrying the heaviest, heaviest load Earhart had ever flown. But she managed to get the plane into the air. Because this was such a long flight, the halfway point, the coal burning USS Ontario held steady to mark their path. The pat, the circular path would then eventually lead again to Howland Island. So if Noonan stuck to the navigational plan he had established in Pan Am, he would shoot the sun or the stars every 60 minutes. And every 120 minutes he would ask Earhart to drop the plane near the water so he could take a drift site, measuring the wind's effect on the plane's speed and direction. Earhart also had a schedule set out for her to use the radio radio to make sure that she maintained contact with people along the way, as well as Howland island itself. Earhart would also operate the radio on a set schedule with the island as well as with the U.S. coast Guard, making sure that they stayed on track so that people knew exactly where she was. During the day, she would transmit at 6210 kilocycles, and at night she'd switch to 3105 kilocycles. Everything went smoothly at first with regular communication with the operator in lay, but two hours later, Balfour heard at 7,000ft and making 150 miles per hour. Twenty minutes later, she provided her only recorded position report, which was latitude 4 degrees, 35, 33.5 degrees south, longitude 159 degrees and 7 degrees east. They were on course about 20 miles southeast of the Nukumanu Islands. But the headwinds were stronger than predicted and the plane was going slower and expending a lot more fuel. Eight hours into the flight, she sent her final message to Balfour, telling him she was switching to her nighttime frequency. He would later report that he asked her to stay on the present frequency so. But she said that she wished to contact the American Coast Guard on the Itasca and there was nothing to do about it but to continue on. Before she left Lay, Earhart had cabled Ontario to request that ship broadcast the letter N in Morse code for five minutes after every hour so that she would know exactly what they were saying, even though she didn't have a full understanding. Of Morse code, she would be able to understand that interpretation and keep track of where that ship was. However, later, a few Nauru residents picked up Earhart's signal on their radios. Some heard her say ship inside ahead. Others reported it as lights in sight ahead. But none of them heard the plane itself. Six hours after Earhart switched to that nighttime frequency, there were men waiting for her near Howland. They finally heard her voice. Unlike in Lay, this wouldn't be a comfortable stop. Barely anyone lived on this very again, very tiny island, just barely above sea level. It was really just one of the few stops that they could make to refuel, to be able to make that long leg across the Pacific back into California. The settlers had placed red flags along the runways, constricted for the round the world flight, and they used explosives to clear these runways of many of the burr birds and other things that would be in the way. Earhart had a bed made up with fresh sheets. They were ready for her to come. Everything was prepared. Men on the Itasca began their watch early, even though she wasn't expected for quite a bit more time, the quiet time after midnight, the ship's narrow radio room became crowded with people, all listening to hear where she was and how the flight was doing, anticipating her arrival. Earhart and Noonan had been in the air for 14 hours and 15 minutes, but they're separated from each other. Airhat sat in the cockpit and just four and a half feet square with no room to stretch her legs. She was about 5 foot 7, 5, 8, while Noonan stayed in the navigation area behind the fuel tanks, trying to make his mathematical calculations. In the noise and the fumes, they would communicate to each other by using a bamboo pole and passing notes through. And then Noonan could scramble over the fuel tanks to sit with Earhart in the co pilot seat if he wanted to. At 2:45am local time, Leo Ballarts, the Itasca chief radioman, recorded the radio log that he said he heard Earhart's plane transmission, but it was unreadable through the static. It was poor reception. An hour later she came in. Clear, she said, Itasca from Earhart overcast will listen to an hour and a half on 3105, according to Commander Thompson's version of what he recorded in the log. Balarz responded on schedule 15 minutes later with the weather report adding, according to Thompson's log, what is your position? When do you expect to arrive at Howland? She didn't reply at her next transmission time, but more than an hour later, Bellars heard her say, partly cloudy. He didn't hear anything else for an hour and 19 minutes. Her voice rang through at 6:14am said, wants bearing on 3105 kcs on our will whistle and mike. And it broke off a minute later. The. The men in the room heard about 200 miles out, approximately whistling now. Commander Thompson ordered the crew to make heavy black smoke so that hopefully she could see them. They tried to contact her again, and then Earhart tried again. She said, please take bearing on us and report in half an hour. I will make noise and microphone about 100 miles out. This time her voice was clearer. Nearly another hour passed before Earhart's voice filled the room. She said, we must be on you, but cannot see you. Gas is running low. Been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at altitude 1,000ft. And this is when the men in the radio room realized that while they were trying to transmission transmit to Earhart, they could hear her, but she could not hear them. And at 7:58am they heard her again. Where she said, we are circling but cannot hear you. Go ahead on 7500 either now or on the scheduled time on half an hour. Her voice came through with a signal strength of five, which is a high signal. She should have been close. They ran out on deck trying to see her. She should be visible, she should be close. He said, we thought she was going to be flying right down onto our rigging. He said, oh, man, she. She came in like a ton of bricks. This transmission, however, the. The Itasca transmitted the Morse code A, and for the first time she responded. She said, we received your signal but unable to get a minimum. Please take a bearing on us and answer 3105 with voice. However, every time they tried to respond with voice, she could not hear them. William Gatlin had taken over the radio from Ballard's shift and said, your signal is received. Okay. We are unable to hear you to take a bearing. There was no answer. He tried on the other wave station on 7500 kilocycles. There was no answer for that either. Galton tried every frequency he thought that her radio might be able to receive on her very teeny, tiny little plane, but could not hear anything at 8:50. At 8:44am the men in the room heard Amelia Earhart's voice coming and tumbling over each other somewhat unclearly. We are on the line position of 157 to 337. We'll repeat that message. We'll repeat this message on 6210 kilocycles. Wait, we are running north and south. Earhart was simply communicating that they were flying 157 degrees southeast and 337 degrees northwest for another hour. Galton and now Thomas O', Hare, who operated the other radio position, were trying to transmit to the Electra. But we're not getting an answer through or an answer in response until at 10:15 in than 21 hours after Earhart and Noonan had left the lay airport Commander Thompson told the Coast Guard to notify division headquarters that Amelia and Noonan had not arrived. I had been a long night of watching for Amelia and Noonan, hoping that they would make their time. Commander Thompson and his crew didn't have a lot to go on. They had a line position of Earhart had given. They assumed it went through the island of Hallen, but they couldn't be sure. And there was no weather. How could she not find the island, especially with Noonan, who was such an esteemed navigator? Later, Thompson would say that they had clear skies, or what he called unlimited ceiling, except to the northwest where there was a bank of cumulus clouds that were dimmed on the horizon. Only there could Noonan have been prevented from taking sightings telling him where they were. And what would happen later was be a subsequent search that would yield no results and would lead to the ongoing investigation of what happened to Amelia Earhart and Noonan's plane. Where is she? Where did she go down and why? And the initial investigation from the Coast Guard and the Navy Reserves yielded nothing. No evidence of a plane, no signs of a body, no sight or sound anywhere of what happened to Amelia Earhart the night that she was lost. Before we get into the investigations and the conspiracy theories that would arise from her disappearance, we're first going to talk about Amelia Earhart's life and how she ended up in that plane in the first place. After our first of two mid show sponsor breaks. And if you would like to have these episodes ad free, you can sign up for patreon@patreon.com montemater to support me. The show and get bonus content would really be cool. And we'll do the White House the next day. We'll just have some fun. We have medals for you guys and we have to. I must tell you, we're gonna have to bring the woman's team. You do know that the video you just heard is our president talking to the men's U.S. hockey team after they had just won gold at the Winter Olympics in Milan. And he invites them to the White House for a little bit of partying. And, of course, jokes. I mean, unfortunately, we're gonna have to invite the women's hockey team, who also won gold. As a matter of fact, the US women's hockey team, since 1998, since women's hockey was allowed in the Olympics, has meddled every time. And the men have not won since 1980. But they sit there in the locker room mocking them. And of course, true to form and as they should have, the women's US Hockey team has said, we're not going to the White House. They declined the invite after the video was published with Cash Patel in the locker room mocking them after their win. After their landslide win. I might point out, run like a girl. You throw like a girl. You're just gonna do this like a girl. It's not a joke. It's only a joke if everyone's laughing. Otherwise, it's just bullying. I think a lot of us can learn a lot from the women's hockey team that we shouldn't be tolerating disrespect. It's never just a joke. It's about mocking women and making sure those women, even though they're better athletes, know their place, make sure they stay small. And to the ladies that are listening, I would say, don't allow a man to joke at your expense like this. It's mocking, it's degrading, and it is meant to be bullying. It is meant to make you feel small. Eight of the 12 medals won by the United States in Milan were won by women. And they deserve respect and they deserve celebration for those achievements. And ladies, I don't care what man it is in your life, if someone is making jokes at your expense, I encourage you to learn from the women's U.S. hockey team and say no and say, I'm not going to engage with you. I'm not going to be in your presence. And, ladies, that also means that with our leadership, you stay informed, whether that person is a celebrity or a political leader. Staying informed as to how does this person actually believe about me? Will this person advocate for me? You, as a woman, have everything you need in your arsenal to make informed decisions to better your life, to follow your dreams. And you can start by using ground news. And ground news is a great way for you to check the news every single day, both globally and in the United States, and make sure that you are well informed of who is running in your district, what's going on on a national level, and be able to make decisions to better your life. Because ladies, you are not a joke. We never were. It was about humiliation and degradation. And if you want to take another step to be able to stay informed, make the best decisions you can and ignore men who would mock and ridicule you like this, you can get 40 off Ground News's Vantage plan, which comes to about $5 a month by subscribing@groundnews.com tables to stay. Start making better choices and do not tolerate anyone who disrespects you. This episode is brought to you by Redfin. 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Amelia Earhart said, some of us have great runways already built for us. If you have one, take off. But if you don't have one, realize it's your responsibility to grab a shovel and build one for yourself for those who will follow you. After Amelia Mary Earhart was born on July 24, 1897, in Atkinson, Kansas, a small but prosperous Midwestern town perched above the Missouri River. Her birth placed her at the intersection of two very important the rigid expectations of late 19th century American society for women and the emerging modern age of what would soon redefine what was possible, especially for women. From the beginning, her life was shaped by tension between tradition and independence, structure and rebellion, and she loved a little bit of something new. Those tensions would not only define her childhood, but to eventually lead her onto an airplane. She was the daughter of Samuel Edwin Stanton Earhart and Amelia Amy Otis Earhart. Her mother came from a wealthy and well established family in Atkison, and her valued propriety. She valued propriety, education and social standing. Her maternal grandfather, who was Alfred Gideon Otis, was a prominent judge and banker, and his home, where Amelia spent much of her early childhood, was large, formal, and steeped in Victorian ideals. In contrast, her father, Edwin, who was a lawyer, struggled to maintain consistent employment and more critically, struggled with severe alcoholism. This instability would ripple through Amelia's earlier years, tearing her family apart, changing plans for her, and creating a household that alternated between comfort and uncertainty. As a child, Amelia, who was known to her family as Millie, was notably different from what was expected at girls of the time. She rejected traditional feminine roles, preferred outdoor playing, climbing trees. She built a makeshift roller coaster after her parents had taken her to the World's Fair and they were able to get on the Ferris wheel and see all these new adventures, conventions. Amy would not allow Amelia and her younger sister Muriel to ride the roller coaster, which, of course, at the time, roller coasters were much more dangerous than they are now. But that didn't deter her. She went home and built her own. Amelia Earhart went and built her own roller coaster. Of course, she was the first to ride it. And when she's riding this cart that's been greased with animal fat on the rails and it crashes, of course, she gets up and she says to Muriel, who she called Pidge, she says, pidge. It was just like flying. Her mother. Again, this is. Amy was unusually progressive for the era and did not force her into rigid gender norms. In fact, she made Amelia and Muriel little outfits that were kind of like pantaloons that they could play in and they could roughhouse in. So she would allow them to wear it on the weekends or allow Them to wear it when they were out playing so they didn't have to wear long dresses. And she encouraged them to engage in more physical activities. Pursue interests that were typically reserved for boys. And this freedom, of course, would be so important for what Amelia became. Because had she not had the support of her mother in her younger years, she may never have pursued aviation. This created a foundation of self trust and independence that would define Amelia's personality. So her mother encouraged exploration. Her father's instability, of course, introduced unpredictability to the family. During an era where it was scandalous to divorce your husband, even if he was a raging alcoholic who could not keep his job. Edwin's alcoholism worsened over time and affected both his career and his role within the family. There were periods when he held great respectable positions, including work with railroad companies. But these moments were often short lived because he could not maintain steady employment due to his addiction. This caused frequent relocations. They moved from Atkinson to Kansas City, then to Des moines, then to St. Paul and Chicago. And each move of course, disrupted Amelia's education and social life, reinforcing a sense of impermanence and and her independence that she already had plenty of to begin with. The strain between her parents became increasingly evident as Amelia grew older. Amy, coming from a value that valued respect and financial stability, found Edwin's behavior difficult to tolerate. Their marriage became tense, marked by emotional distance and conflict. Of course it did. Eventually, Amy made the decision to separate from Edwin, taking Amelia and Muriel with her. This separation was not only a practical decision, but an emotional turning point for Amelia. It reinforced the idea that stability was not guaranteed and the independence was necessary. In fact, her family, especially her father, disliked Edwin so much that in their will, when Amy was given an inheritance, it was actually locked in a Trust for 15 years. Because they were worried that Edwin's irresponsibility would drain the money and the inheritance from Amy and the kids. But despite all these disruptions and these frequent moves, Amelia's intellectual curiosity continued to develop. She was not initially an exceptional student in a traditional sense. Again, her schooling was really fragmented, making it difficult for her to really establish herself. But she was deeply observant. She engaged with the world. She kept scrapbooks of newspaper clippings about women who succeeded in male dominated fields. Of course she did, including engineers, lawyers and scientists. And this was even before aviation entered her life. She was drawn to stories of women doing more. Women doing something different. Amelia always knew I just want more. And I like when I was reading through her story and one of the books really just Talking about her childhood and who she was, I thought of the I want much more than this provincial life song. In Beauty and the Beast that Belle sings, she's like, I want more than this. Like there's nothing wrong with this, but I want more. I want to travel, I want to see more. And Amelia very much seems to have that kind of energy. As I mentioned earlier, one of the formative events for her would be attending the 1904 World's Fair or the Louisiana Purchase Exposition outside of St. Louis, which of course showed her these technological expositions, these possibilities again, those rides leading her to build her own roller coaster. The celebration, celebrations of human achievement, mechanical progress, and the idea that the future would be radically different from the past. By the time Amelia was a child, aviation itself was barely emerging. The Wright brothers first flight, in 1903, occurred when she was six years old. She grew up in a world where for the first time ever, it's something that we just assume now, but for the first time ever, flight was not a myth. It was possible. And interestingly, at first, in her younger years, Amelia did not seem to be immediately captivized by captivated by airplanes. Her first encounter with an aircraft at a state fair did not inspire her. She later recalled feeling unimpressed, even dismissive of it. That transformation that would pull her into aviation would come much later. Amelia's adolescence was marked by again these continued movement and adaptation. She attended multiple schools, including Hyde Park High School in Chicago, where she eventually graduated in 1916. During this period, she began to take her education more seriously and developed an interest in science and medicine. When the United States entered World War I, Amelia chose not to pursue college in the traditional sense. Instead, she went to Toronto, Canada, where she worked as a nurse's aide at a military hospital. It was during this time that she was exposed to wounded soldiers, many of them pilots, and heard firsthand the accounts of aerial combat. Aviation was no longer just a fun and exciting possibility or a show. It took on a different meeting, meaning it wasn't a technological novelty, but it was a space of courage, danger and transformation. She spent time watching pilots train at a nearby airfield. And then she started to shift. The machines that she had dismissed, that she was unimpressed with, began to represent freedom, skill and a new area of heroism for her. After the war, Amelia briefly attended Columbia University, where she studied pre med, but she didn't complete her degree. Her life continued to be shaped by movement and uncertainty, including her parents ongoing separation and her father's declining stability. She eventually would move back to California with her parents, who had attempted a reconciliation. In a letter to her sister Pidge Muriel, she said, I'm going back so that you don't have to. And basically took decided to make that sacrifice on her own so that her sister wouldn't have to leave school and so that she could hopefully help her parents. And it was in California in 1920, two years before my grandmother was born, that Amelia experienced the moment that would define the rest of her life. She attended an air show in Long beach and took her first flight as a passenger. The pilot, Frank Hanks, flew her to an altitude of a few hundred feet. The flight lasted only about 10 minutes, but it was transformative for her. Amelia would later say, as soon as I left the ground, I knew I had to fly. The realization set her on a path that was anything but straightforward. And it was definitely unconventional. Flying was expensive. Amelia did not come from a financially stable household anymore. To afford lessons, she took a variety of jobs, including a photographer, a truck driver, a stenographer, saving every dollar that she could. And she was determined. She cut her hair short, she wore practical clothing. She had always kind of been a simple dresser, but took it a little bit further and she immersed herself in a male dominated world of aviation with little concern about how she was perceived. And I want to say here because I think it's important to note that it is important to, to know that Amelia's making these amazing strides and she is pushing the boundaries and breaking through these ceilings. But there is this still this level of privilege of coming from a well established family that even though her immediate family didn't have a lot of wealth, they were still well respected. She came from a respectable home and she was also white. It would have been much difficult had she been a woman of color to be able to do what she did next. She eventually sought out another female pilot named Anita or Nita Snook, one of the few female pilots in the country, and asked Anita if she would be willing to teach her. Under Snook's guidance, Amelia learned the fundamentals of flying quickly, demonstrating both aptitude and discipline. Anita would comment on how quickly Amelia picked things up, that I rarely had to tell her twice. She picked it up. She was a natural flyer. And then Amelia purchased her first airplane, which was a secondhand kenner airster that she nicknamed the Canary because of its bright yellow color. Color. In 1922, just two years after her first flight, Amelia set her first record. She became the first woman to fly solo at an altitude of 14, 000ft. It was an early indication of what she would be capable of, not just as a pilot, but as someone who would really change the trajectory of women in aviation. Financial difficulties later forced her to sell her airplane and she's temporarily stepped away from flying. She moved back east, worked various jobs, and re established connections in Boston and New York. During this time, she also did a lot of social work, helping local communities, helping te teach English. And it was work that she truly loved. But aviation never left her heart. She remained involved and eventually joined the American Aeronautical Society and continued to build her network. A big turning point for amelia came in 1928 when she was invited to become the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean as a passenger. The flight that was piloted by Wilmer Stoltz and co piloted by Lewis Gordon was more symbolic than technical. Amelia, of course, did not fly the plane at this point point, but the impact was enormous and she was an international celebrity overnight. And I don't know that this is where her, her quote came about. There's more to life than being a passenger, but I would imagine it came from this flight. Amelia, of course, was not satisfied with being a passenger. She understood the significance of the achievement and she also recognized its limitations. She wanted to earn her place in aviation through her skill, not symbolism, not being a token woman that was allowed to sit on the plane. And she would later say, I'm going to work some of her quotes in here because she has so many that are so good. She said everyone has oceans to fly if they have the heart to do it. Is it reckless? Yes. But what do dreams know of boundaries? Amelia deeply desired to be known for her skill. And over the next several years, she would do exactly that. In 1932, she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, departing from Newfoundland and landing in Ireland. The flight was dangerous, marked by a lot of mechanical issues, weather challenges, physical exhaustion. At one point, ice formed on the wings, at another, elite caused fuel concerns. But she completed the journey and of course made herself safe, safely secure. As one of the most inspirational women in history. The flight was not just a record, of course, it was a statement. Amelia was not an accessory to aviation. She was one of its leading figures. She would later become the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to California, a route considered even more dangerous than the Atlantic crossing due to the how long it is and how isolated it is. She also set speed records and completed transcontinental flights, consistently pushing the boundaries of what was considered popular, possible. At the same time, she was building a public Identity that extended beyond aviation. She became a writer, a lecturer, and advocate for women's rights. And if you have not read some of her work, her writing work, she is a spectacular writer. She Co founded the 99s, which was an organization for female pilots, and used her platform to encourage women to pursue careers in fields traditionally dominated by men. Now, prior to her major life changes in the 1930s, she had previously been engaged to a man named Samuel or Sam Chapman, who was a chemical engineer from Boston. He was educated, stable. He was from a respected social circle. He represented exactly the kind of life that women like Earhart in the early 1920s were supposed to have. Marriage, security and being domestic. A lot of the same life that we're seeing pitch now and again, I want to say there's nothing wrong with that. Like, if that's what you want, I, one of my sisters, who is one of the most beautiful human beings, always just wanted to be a wife and mother. She wanted to make a home. She wanted. And that's what she loved, and that's awesome. But to say that all women should only want that and that should be the only thing available to them often becomes the problem. So during her time in California, Chapman had proposed to her in 1922. He proposed, she accepted. But there were already warning signs. So Earhart was already training as a pilot. This was during the time that she would buy the canary. She was spending time and money on flying, which was a risky pursuit for anyone. Obviously, aviation is still very dangerous at this point, and eventually their engagement would disintegrate. And part of it was because Chapman wanted a conventional marriage and Earhart did not. She wanted freedom to pursue her ambitions. She could not promise to be the typical wife. And she said this to him, she wrote it to him. And her identity was already forming around aviation again. In 1922 was the time that she bought her own plane. She was setting altitude records. And even though, especially coming from her family, of financial instability, Chapman offered stability, predictability, social respectability, fit in, do what the women are supposed to do. Earhart didn't want that. She wanted adventure, autonomy, and purpose beyond domestic life. And I could not resonate with that feeling more. Like when I have been reading and putting this together, her desire for adventure, her desire to mark a new path, her desire for her own autonomy that is just so resonant in my life. I remember growing up in the church and. And growing up in this very narrow view of what women can be and what you can do and what you should or shouldn't want. And I remember as a kid, I always felt so trapped. I always felt like I couldn't breathe. I always had this impulse to run away. And I wasn't running away because I hated my family. I was like, I just wanted more. I wanted to see things. I didn't want to be a prisoner in this life. And that's what I felt. Felt like growing up, because I wanted adventure, I wanted to travel, I wanted to see the ocean. I wanted it. And I would sit on my windowsill and I would just daydream. I wanted something bigger for my life. And this engagement, of course, would quietly dissolve around 1923. It wasn't. It wasn't a big scandal. It just. They realized they wanted something different. And she was moving out East. But her personal life would dramatically change later because in 1931, she married George Putnam, a publisher who'd been instrumental in promoting her career. And they did have. Have an unconventional relationship. Amelia, even with Putnam, insisted on maintaining her independence. And she would write a letter to him before their marriage stating that she did not intend to be bound by traditional expectations of wifehood, which is such a gangster thing to do in the 1930s. Their partnership was romantic and professional. Putnam managed her public image, and Amelia continued to pursue her ambitions. And by all accounts, Putnam really loved her and pushed her to succeed and supported the dreams that she had had. By the mid-1930s, Amelia Earhart was one of the most famous women in the world. She was reshaping the narrative of what women could do, and she was not done. Her final ambition, and the biggest ambition of all, which was what we talked about earlier, was the goal to fly and circumnavigate the globe. This was not just a flight. This is a culmination of everything she had built. Her skills as a pilot, her reputation, her determination, her hard work, and her willingness to take risks. This was also a reflection of the era she lived in, a time when aviation represents the future. It represented freedom, obviously, this is. This is the throes of the Great Depression. It represents hope. And those who mastered aviation became symbols of progress. This idea that things are going to be different, things are going to change. And her journey would begin in 1937. My grandmother would have been 15 at this time, and it would end in mystery. But everything that led to that moment, of course, her unstable childhood, the fractured family, the relentless pursuit of her independence. Just wanting to be in the sky, wanting to be up there, wanting something new. She had already made herself a legacy and a legend. She already had shown herself for who she was and she would be. She was and will always be something more than a missing pilot. She became a symbol of possibility in a world that is still learning exactly what that means. And before I get into the subsequent investigations of what happened on that fateful day on July 2nd of 1937, it is time for our second of two mid show sponsors or breaks. And again, you can get these ad free on patreon@patreon.com Montemater Spring Fest means more sun, more fun and more free at Lowe's. Keep your yard in line with an additional free EGO 56 volt battery when you buy a select Ego mower trimmer or blower. Plus keep landscaping fresh with stay green 1 cubic foot garden soil 5 bags for $10 Our best lineup is here at Lowe's, valid through 4A while supplies last selection varies by location. Soil offer excludes Alaska and Hawaii Experience a membership that backs what you're building with American Express Business Platinum. Enjoy complimentary access to the American Express Global Lounge Collection and a welcome offer of 200,000 points after you spend $20,000 on purchases on the card within your first three months of membership. American Express Business Platinum there's nothing like it. Terms apply. Learn more@american express.com Business Platinum this episode is brought to you by Peloton Break through the busiest time of year with the brand new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus. Powered by Peloton iq. With real time guidance and endless ways to move, you can personalize your workouts and train with confidence, helping you reach your goals in less time. Let yourself run, lift, sculpt, push and go explore the new peloton cross training tread +@onepalaton.com Spring just slid into your DMs. Grab that boho, look for that rooftop dinner, those sandals that can keep up with you, and hang some string lights to give your patio a glow up. Spring's calling, Ross. Work your magic. Unlike many aviation disappearances, Earhart's case never settled into a single accepted conclusion. They're still investigating it. We still don't know for sure. I will talk about what I think happened, but we will go through a lot of the theories, conspiracy theories and the search failures. So this is involved into a layered investigation spanning over a century shaped by technological advancement. I'm sorry, almost a century, not quite a century. Country, competing theories and of course, the financial and cultural weight of solving one of history's most famous unsolved cases. This is one of the OG cold cases. So let's talk about the first failure of 1937, in their failures to search. When Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, vanished over the Pacific while attempting to reach Howland island, the US Government launched one of its largest and most expensive search operations of the time. The US Navy and the Coast Guard deployed ships and aircraft across a vast area of ocean. Ocean focusing primarily on the region northwest of Howland Island. Based on her last radio transmissions, we talked about this earlier. Her final known message indicated she was flying along a navigational line, 157337, and was running low on fuel. This line of position became the foundation for every future investigation. Well, almost all. Almost all of them. But despite this massive, inexpensive effort, the initial search found nothing. There was no debris, no oil slick, no confirmation of a crash site. The absence of evidence created a vacuum that would fuel a century of speculation. And I'm saying a century again, I mean nearly a century. Even at the time the most straightforward conclusion emerged, she likely ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean. But the lack of physical proof prevented the theory from ever becoming fully conclusive. Over time, there was three primary theories that emerged, each spawning its own investigations, funding sources, and scientific approaches. Of course, there's the crash and sink theory, that Earhart ran out of fuel near Howland island, she couldn't make it, and crashed in the Pacific, where they either died on impact or drowned. Then there's the Nikuma Roro theory, which is the castaway theory, that she landed on a remote island and survived for a period of time. And then there is, of course, the Japanese capture theory, that she was captured by the Japanese forces and either imprisoned or executed. Each of these theories, of course, had different types of investigations, from oceanographers to forensic anthropologists to conspiracy theorists. And it shaped where this investigation would go, especially in the immediate decades following her death. The crash and sink theory has long been the favorite by aviation experts and many scientists because it aligns most closely with what we know about the flight data, the fuel fuel calculations, and the radio transmissions. One of the most prominent figures in this line of investigation is David W. Jordan, an ocean engineer and a deep sea explorer who led searches through his company, Nauticos. Jordan's approach was grounded in the data reconstruction, analyzing Earhart's fuel capacity, her flight path, and the last communications to determine the most probable crash zone. Between 2002 and 2006, Nautico conducted deep sea sonar searches covering about 1200 square miles of ocean floor north and west of Howland Island. These Expeditions cost about $4.5 million, funded through a combination of Private investment and institutional backing, they tried to reconstruct Earhart's final flight path using navigational data, identify a probability zone where the fuel exhaustion would have occurred, and use a side scan sonar to map the ocean floor. But despite all the technology, the searches yielded nothing definitive. Jordan himself concluded that Earhart likely went into the water off Holland, but acknowledged that proving it would be extraordinarily difficult. Difficult. And this, of course, is the central challenge of Earhart's mystery. The most plausible explanation is the hardest to prove. This is this is the most likely thing that happened. She ran out of fuel. But the Pacific Ocean obviously is incredibly immense, so huge and even with modern technology, a relatively small aircraft in deep water would be like searching for a needle in in the open abyss. In recent years, Nauticos has expanded its investigation beyond sonar. The team has attempted to replicate Earhart's final radio transmission using period accurate equipment, including a rare Western Elect 13C transmitter. Project manager Jeff Morris has emphasized that this understanding, that understanding the limitations and behavior of Earhart's radio system is key in interpreting her final message. But recreating the conditions of her flight. Researchers hope to define to refine the estimated crash location and if the crash and sync theory represents scientific conservatism. Conservatism, the Nikumoro hypothesis represents a more interdisciplinary and somewhat controversial approach and theory. Theory, this theory is champ is championed by Tigar, the International Group for Historic Historic Aircraft Recovery, which was a Nonprofit founded in 1985 by Richard Gillespie. Tigar's central claim is that Earhart Noonan, unable to locate Howland island, flew southeast along the 157377 line and landed on Nikumaroro, an uninhabited little bump in the ocean in the Phoenix Islands. TIGER issued multiple expeditions beginning in 1989 and uncovered a range of artifacts on Nikumaroro. Pieces of aluminum consistent with aircraft construction, improvised tools, a woman's shoe heel, evidence of fires and food preparations. And again, this had a brief period of colonialization in the 60s, but outside of that has been relatively uninhabited. The organization argues that these findings suggest a castaway scenario, that Earhart survived for some time on the island, sending distress signals at night when conditions would allow. However, critics argue that the evidence is circumstantial at best and not definitively linked to air. Some artifacts have alternative explanations, such as debris from other aircraft or shipwrecks in the region. Obviously, there was a lot of wrecks and crashes during World War II itself especially. Tiger has employed a range of scientific methods on the island, using forensic Analysis of bone measurements. They did find the skeleton of a woman under a tree. Many of the bones had been scattered by crabs. DNA testing though the results have been inconclusive. Archaeological excavation and canine scent detection for human remains. And I want to clarify too that we with the female set of bones that they found that they were able to scientifically test the bones to say that it was very likely that the bones belonged to someone of European or Caucasian descent. One of the most high profile investigations tied to Nikamaru theory came in 2019 led by Dr. Robert Ballard, the ocean explorer famous for discovering the Titanic. And for those of you that had a Titanic obsession, you know exactly who I'm talking about. Ballard's expedition used advanced deep sea mapping technology to search the waters around Nicomarolo. Expectations of course were high. He's already had this major life altering discovery. If Earhart's plane had gone over the reef into deeper water, Ballard's team had the tools to find it. But after days of searching, the result was definitive. In its absence, there was no wreckage found. Ballard's team concluded that if the plane had been there, they likely would have found it pretty quickly. And this dealt a significant blow to the Nika Maruru hypothesis, though it did not eliminate it entirely. Clearly in recent years, this because again we're still searching, people still want to solve this question. In recent years the search for Amelia Earhart has increasingly shifted towards private ventures backed by significant financial investment. The Deep sea vision from 2023 to 2024, a South Carolina based ocean exploration company founded by Tony romeo, a former U.S. air Force intelligence officer. Between September and December of 2023, the company conducted a large scale sonar survey survey covering 5,200 square miles of ocean floor, which is massive. Using an unmanned underwater drone, the team identified a sonar image that appears to show an aircraft. Romeo has expressed strong confidence that the object could be Earhart's Lockheed Electra, citing its shape and the absence of other of un other known wrecks in the area. However, experts caution that sonar images alone are not definitive, which is true. As David Jordan noted, underwater imaging can be deceptive and visual confirmation is required before conclusions can be drawn. In 2025, Purdue University, which has ties to Earhart, helped fund and helped fund her original flight. In 2025, Purdue committed half a million dollars to a new expedition targeting the Nicomirororo. Based on satellite imagery suggesting possible aircraft debris. Led in part by researcher Richard Pettigrew, the expedition aims to investigate what's been called the Tyrea object and a visual anomaly that may correspond to Earhart's plane. As with previous efforts, of course, every a little bit skeptical. It's very timid. Nothing's been found so far. Now let's get into the Japanese capture theory, which very much especially in her. In the immediate aftermath of World War II and the tension between the Japanese and the United States, this became a very popular theory that, you know, a lot of people would make very outlandish claims about, and then it would later fall apart. So the crash and sync theory and the Nikumaroro theories are rooted in scientific inquiry, specifically around where she was flying last. The Japanese capture theory occupies a. A bit more of an ambiguous space, if you will, between investigation and speculation. This theory would kind of become a hybrid of Cold War suspicion, lingering World War II trauma, and again, a lack of definitive evidence about where she went. And, and people's real refusal. They didn't want to believe that she just went down and died. They didn't want to believe that she just crashed into the ocean. And how often, you know, that has happened with heroes or people that are considered so legendary, it's like, oh, it just. It can't end like. Like that. So this theory argues that Earhart and her navigator Noonan did not crash in the ocean near Howland Island. Instead, they landed or crash landed in the Marshall Islands, which were at the time under Japanese control. Is then claims that they were captured by Japanese forces, possibly suspected of espionage for the US and that they would later be executed or die in captivity. And then in later variations, this theory would evolve that they secretly returned to the US under new identity communities. So after did not gain traction in 1937, it would grow later because of what happened in World War II. So after 1945, Americans obviously learned more about Japanese military presence in the Pacific, prison camps and harsh treatments of captives, even though we were also interning people. And this made the idea of capture seem plausible in hindsight. By the 1960s, of course, we had suspicion of COVID missions, spies, government cover ups. Very widespread intelligence operations were increasingly being exposed, exposed. And this created a cultural environment where people were more willing to believe that Earhart may have been on a secret US Reconnaissance mission, that the government hid the truth to avoid diplomatic fallout. And of course, again, we have lack of physical evidence. So since there's no plane or pieces of a plane found in the ocean, it allows people to speculate that, well, if there was nothing found, she obviously didn't crash. The central figure to this theory is Fred Girner, who is the most influential advocate. He was a CBS radio journalist and had published the Search for amelia Earhart in 1966. Earhart Noonan landed in the Marshall Islands. Excuse me, These were. His claims were that Earhart Noonan landed in the Marshall Islands, they were captured by the Japanese forces on Jalut Atoll, and that Earhart died in custody on Saan. His evidence were interviews with Marshallese islanders, some of whom had claimed to have seen a woman dressed in a pantsuit, dressed like a pilot with short hair. Statements from US servicemen, US servicemen stationed in Saan after World War II, and reports of locals, again, locals recalling a female pilot, a wrecked air aircraft and foreign white prisoners being held by the Japanese. He pushed it due to, you know, his own investigative instinct and I think a lot of the Cold War influence, his belief that the U. S. Government suppressed information, which is true, but maybe not in this particular instance. And of course he had professional incentive. It was compelling. It was a high profile mystery. If he could offer a plausible explanation or prove it, he would just be. It would just be amazing for his career. After World War II, American troops stationed in Saipan and around the islands reported that locals had spoken of a white woman pilot and a male navigator. Some claimed that they saw graves, old aircraft wreckage. Others said they heard stories that Earhart had been held and died there after the war ended. And of course, these accounts were very secondhand. They were inconsistent. Often decades were removed. Some people had been claimed that oh, soldier so and so or General so and so gave me the statement. And then that military officer would say, no, I didn't. I've never spoken. Spoken to you. Girner and others collected stories from islanders who described a plane landing or crashing, foreigners taken by Japanese authorities and then the transportation of those captives from Jalut to Saipan. And again, these were gathered years after World War II. And we know that eyewitness testimony, memory contamination and translation can complicate the reliability. But outside of the 1960s, the the this was later popularized by Joe class in the 1970s, various TV documentaries in the 1970s through the ninet and of course the Internet era conspiracy communities. Some later versions became more extreme, including that Earhart returned to the US As a different person with a new identity and assertions that a deep government cover up existed without evidence. So there's specific claims that they have, quote, evidence for the Jalute Atoll landing. The theory states that Earhart missed Howland island, flew northwest to the Marshall Islands and landed or crashed at Jalute, a Japanese administrative center. But the problem with that is that the Navigation, distance and fuel constraints make this very unlikely. She probably would have ran out of fuel before she could get there. Capture IMPRISONMENT they claim that the detention was held by Japanese military, that she was interrogated as a suspected spy and later transferred to Saipan. The problem is there's no verified military records to confirm this, and the Japanese kept military records at the time. SAPAN DEATH NARRATIVE the most common version of this is that Earhart died on Sapan around 1937-1939, possibly executed or died from illness. And some claim that graves existed later. They were searched. None were confirmed. The bones that they did dig up were locals. And then there's the spy mission theory. One of the most persistent extensions is that Earhart was doing the circumnavigation secretly working for the US government, and her flight was a cover for photographing Japanese installations. This idea emerged, of course, after World War II. The animosity, cold War fascination with espionage, and of course, retroactively projected projecting the intelligence practices of the 1960s onto the 1930s with this one. There's no credible evidence whatsoever to support this. The US government had no strategic need to risk a celebrity for such a mission. And again, that's not to say that the US government doesn't hide and lie things, because they do, and they've always done that. But there just doesn't seem to be any actual evidence of that happening. And I think that this theory in particular, it, like, has been able to maintain such a chokehold because of the emotional narrative. Right. It goes from being just a tragic, kind of disappointing, anticlimactic ending to this dramatic wartime mystery. It's also the cultural timing when this really takes off in the 1960s America, there's all this distrust, there's this belief about hidden truths, there's a lot of conspiracy, there's a lot of very well founded distrust of the government in particular, but also, and I think ultimately the reason that the theory persists is the lack of climate closure. There was no wreckage, no evidence, we don't know. And it finally gave people a story that explained the silence, that explained, like, why this hero, this woman, this, this brave, you know, like, horizon chaser was gone. It gave people closure, which I think ultimately for a lot of people, that's what we, that's what we yearn for. And nearly 90 years after her disappearance, we're still searching, not because of a lack of effort, but we don't have a unique convergence of factors on a geographic scale. The Pacific Ocean obviously is so mass. It's so difficult to Search. There's technological limits. Even modern sonar cannot guarantee detection. We have incomplete data. Those radio transmissions I read in the beginning were not completely clear all the time. And then, of course, we have the cultural fascination that we continue to search because she's such a key part of aviation history, she's such a key part of women's history. And the mystery continues to attract scientists, sleuths, conspiracy theorists, all investing time and money into songs again, for that closure, for the answer, what really happened? And among those theories, again, the crash and sink theory is the most widely accepted among experts. Nika Mororo theory continues to generate expeditions and is probably the second most popular. I think most serious people are not taking seriously the Japanese capture and then execution theory. The search for Amelia Earhart is in many ways a story about the limits of our own search. And it's also the fact that we want that climax of the story. We want that happier ending. We want it to be, she gets home and she's with her husband and she becomes this and this and this, and we don't get it. It has drawn some of the world's most advanced technologies, respected scientists, well funded expeditions. It's also generated, obviously, so many different narratives. But the central question hasn't changed, and we don't know the answer. What happened in the final hours over the past Pacific? And until her Electra is found or any kind of definitive evidence emerges, the mystery will continue to occupy this place in history. But one of the things that I want to say about this is that while I think the mystery is fun to discuss and it's so intriguing to look at history, it in no way dims who she was and what she stood for. How extraordinary her life was that a woman born in the 1800s would say, I want to fly, fly. That she would look at what her life was supposed to be and said, no, I. I don't want that. I don't want that. I want something different for myself. And I'm going to read a couple more of her quotes before we transition into the Night Witches. Amelia Earhart would write, never interrupt someone doing something you said couldn't be done. She also said, the most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act, change and control your life. Life and the procedure and the process is its own reward. She would also say, especially regarding relationships, being alone is scary, but not as scary as feeling alone in a relationship. And I have, I am so inspired by her story, by her courage of just deciding, no, I'm going to do this. And I love her quote, I want to do it because I want to do it. I don't have to explain myself. I'm going to to do it. And as we wrap up this episode, I really wanted to talk about the Night Witches. It's a story that I only discovered a couple years ago. Obviously it's about aviation, but it's such an incredible little piece of history that I wish we got taught more about. And I hope that throughout this episode, as if you listen to it, and not just for women, but for everyone, that you start to think about, what does it mean to me to fly lie? What does it mean to me if instead of following along this routine, because this is the societal, cultural expectation, this is my family's expectation, what would my life look like if I chose myself and built my Runway? And I think that in a lot of ways, the Night Witches also show that during the darkest years of World War II, as Nazi Germany was advancing deep into the Soviet territory, the Soviet Union mobilized not just the men, but its women. Among the most extraordinary of these efforts was the creation of an all female combat aviation units, the most famous being the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, later redesignated the 46th Guard Knights bomber Aviation Regiment. Because they love long names. If you've done any USSR history, they love long names. To the Germans, they became known as the Nachtaxen, or the Night Witches. The name was not given lightly. It came from the eerie, very silent way their planes would glide through the darkness before dropping bombs, followed by the whispering rush of the air that German soldiers likened to the sound of a witch's brood broomstick. And their story is incredible. The Night Witches and the broader program of female combat pilots was born out of desperation. In June of 1941, Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, a massive invasion of the Soviet Union. The speed and scale of the German advance was catastrophic. Soviet forces were overwhelmed, cities were falling, and casualties mounted into the millions. It's very hard for us in our modern area era to grasp the totality of casualty and damage of World War II. But amid this crisis, a famed Soviet aviator named Marina Raskova, she one of the very few female Soviet pilots, a national hero who was often compared to, you'll guessed it, Amelia Earhart, petitioned Joseph Stalin directly to allow women to serve in combat aviation roles. Raskova argued that women were already volunteering in large numbers and that their exclusion was a waste of desperately needed man manpower. She was able to convince Stalin and she, she actually went and met with him in person to advocate for this. Stalin agreed. In October of 1941, three all female aviation regiments were authorized. The 586th Fighter Aviation Regiment, the 587th Dive Bomber Regiment, and the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, which would become the Night Witches. And of course, the 588th would become the most famous. And I, and I want to say here real quick too, I don't know if anyone's watched the documentary Manosphere with Lewis Thoreau, but I haven't watched the whole thing yet. But one of things that a lot of these Manosphere people say is that like, well, men have built the world. Like, look at all the buildings. Look at these. Like scientific women were banned. Women weren't allowed to go to education for engineering or for law or for medicine. They weren't allowed to do things. So you can't block someone from participating in entire sectors and then use them, not participating in entire sectors as proof that they can't do it. They simply weren't allowed to do it and often were married off so young, they, they didn't have the option. Anyway, I just wanted to say that really quick because nobody comes out of the womb knowing how to sweep a floor, wash dishes, right? That's not intuitively women's work. We get good at what we get taught to do. Men are not naturally good drivers. Dad typically spends more time driving with his son or working in the garage around the cars, or the boy is encouraged to play with cars. We become good at what we practice. It's like the piano. If you practice working around a car, you're going to be good working with a car. If you practice sewing, you're going to be good at sewing. They're not gendered things. We've made them that way. But also, again, those things have created of like, well, women are good at this, but they can't do this. And that's why the reason I bring it up and say that is that the women who joined these regiments were astonishingly young. Many of them, most of them were from 17 to 22 years old. Many of those girls lied about their age to enlist. They were 15 and 16 years of age. They came from across the Soviet Union. They were students, factory workers, athletes and amateur pilots. That came with a sense of patriotism and a willingness to endure extraordinary hardship. Hardship. They lied to get in. And most of these women were young, were at the same age or younger as women graduating college today, unlike the male pilots, many of the women, of course had limited flight experience because they weren't allowed. Others, however, were already highly skilled through pre war aviation clubs, mostly women's only clubs. Regardless of background, they were all thrust into an accelerated training program designed to prepare them for combat as quickly as possible. Their training took place at Angles Air Base and was intense to the point of exhaustion. What normally took a minimum of two years to train the men to do was compressed into six months. The women were trained not only as pilots, but also as navigators, mechanics and ground crew. They learned how to repair their own aircraft, plan missions and operate under combat conditions. They trained in all weather, often flying multiple sorties per day. Sleep was scarce. Resources were limited. Uniforms were not. The women had to use equipment designed for men. It was not tailored for them. They would often wore oversized men's clothing, sometimes cutting down the boots or stuffing them with fabric to fit. They also flew older, less maneuverable planes than the men did. But despite these challenges, the training fostered a deep sense of camaraderie and self reliance. These women were not auxiliaries. They were fully integrated combat crews, responsible for every aspect of their missions. And again, many of these women are teenagers. And perhaps the most striking disadvantage that the Nice Witches faced, of course, was their equipment. They were assigned the Polkarapov PO2, a two seat biplane originally designed as a crop duster and training aircraft in the 1920s. By World War II standards, the PO2 was so outdated. It was made of wood and canvas. It had no radar, no radio, no parachutes for some crews early on, and the maximum speed was slower than German aircraft's stall speed. Yet this apparent weakness became a tactical advantage. The PO2. Slow speed and maneuverability made it difficult for faster German fighters to engage. Engage with it. If a German pilot slowed down enough to target a PO2, they risk stalling and crashing. Additionally, the Night Witches developed a unique attack method where they would cut their engines and glide silently towards their target before releasing bombs. The only sound was the rush of air. And this was that witch's brute, which is why they were called the Night Witches. They would come in in dead silent, cutting their engines, drop those bombs and all you would hear was the whoosh of the air. The. The Witches broomstick. The night, which is operated exclusively at night. Only at night, flying harassment bombing missions designed to disrupt German supply lines, encampments and morale. Each crew typically flew eight to 18 missions per night, every single night. Their bombs were small compared to those carried by larger aircraft, but their persistence made them devastating again. You're flying, you're Just, you're literally dropping a bomb, coming back, dropping bombs, coming back, dropping bomb, and just all night long. 30 of its members were awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, the highest honor in the ussr. But we're going to talk specifically about Lydia Litviak, who would later become called the Rose of Stalingrad. While the night witches dominated the night skies, there was another group of Soviet women who fought by day as a fighter pilot. And Lydia Litvak was one of them. And she would become a legend. She was born in Moscow in 1921. Litviak began flying at a young age and quickly demonstrated exceptional skills when she was allowed to join the Soviet Air Force. She was assigned to the 586 Fighter Aviation Regiment before being transferred to a male unit because she was that damn good. Litviak became known as the White Lily because of the flower that she had painted on her aircraft. She was also called the Rose of Stalingrad, which was a nod to her role in one of the war's most brutal and decisive battles. The Battle of Stalingrad from 1942 to 1943 was a turning point in the war. It was brutal, grinding conflict that resulted in massive casualties, casualties on both sides. For Soviet pilots, the skies above Stalingrad were as deadly as the streets were. And this was where Lithviak proved herself. During one engagement, she shot down a German aircraft piloted by an experienced ace, a reportedly decorated World War I veteran. When the German pilot was captured and brought before Soviet forces, he demanded to see who shot him down. He refused to believe that the pilot who had downed him was a woman. It was only after being introduced to Lydia herself that he accepted the reason. Reality. The moment became emblematic of the shock that Soviet women pilots inflicted on their enemies. They were not expected. They were not taken seriously until it was too late to take them seriously. Lydia Litviak was credited with 12 solo victories and several shared kills, making her one of the highest scoring female pilots in history. Her flying style was aggressive and precise. She was known for closing in on targets, conserving ammunition, literally playing chicken with these other fighter planes and maintaining control in chaotic dog fights. She was also wounded in combat, but returned to flying after recovery and indicated both her resilience and the dire need for experienced pilots. Little. Little cool story part here. Amid the violence of war, Litvak formed a relationship with fellow pilot Alexis Solomatin, a skilled and respected aviator. Their bond was forged, of course, in combat. Shared missions, shared patriotism, and a love of what? And love through what it meant to face death. To daily, their relationship offered a rare glimpse of humanity within the brutality of the Eastern Front. But war does not spare those moments, and nor do things often have a good ending. Solomitin was killed in a training accident, a loss that deeply affected Litviak. Those who knew her noted a change. She became quiet, more somber, but it did not affect her focus or her ability to do her job. But on August 1st of 1943, Lydia Litvak flew her final mission. She was just 20 years old when her aircraft was shot down during combat near Orel. For decades, her fate was uncertain. She was listed as missing in action. And because there was no confirmed body, she was. She was not immediately awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. It was not until 1990, after her remains were found and identified, that she was officially recognized. But by 1945, the Soviet Union emerged victorious. Of course, with the US and Britain having borne the brunt of the war against Nazi German Germany. The Red army celebrated was celebrated as a symbol of strength, sacrifice. But in that sacrifice, many stories were simplified or completely omitted. The contributions of women, including the Night Witches, were often downplayed. When the Red army paraded through the streets of Moscow in celebration, the women's ranks and regiments were not included. While some were later honored. The broader narrative of the war, of course, emphasized male traditional military structure. Women were encouraged to now go back to civilian life, that they would no longer be allowed in the military. And their combat roles became in many ways an uncomfortable role. Reminder of a moment when necessity had overridden gender ideology and constraints. And despite this erasure, the legacy of the Night Witches and pilots like Lydia Litvak endure. They demonstrated that skill and courage are not bound by gender. They redefined what's possible in military aviation and the fact that women can do it too. They just need an opportunity to get in the door that we get good at what we train for. The Night Witches turned outdated planes into instruments of psychological warfare. Lydia Litvak turned skepticism of her enemies into shock and defeat. Together they carved a place in history that continues to challenge the assumptions about war, gender and recognition. This is one of many stories, and a story just like Amelia's, of that women are capable, women are able, that women can be fierce, ferocious, aggressive. And it doesn't make them less women the same way being soft and loving and domestic doesn't make you less of a woman. That a woman's destiny is whatever she decides it to to be. That all a woman needs is an open door and an opportunity. But also it's a reflection of how these outdated boundaries that we put on gender because we do it to men too, these outdated, these outdated roles and these outdated prescriptions, these tiny little boxes that we want to cram people into. How much are we missing culturally because of what we demand people do or don't do? How much are we missing out on people discovering new things, new cures, new inventions, cures because we've decided that, oh, a woman shouldn't do that or a man shouldn't do that. How much are we missing out on what it means to be truly human because we won't let people fly. And my challenge to you with this episode is where do you want to fly? Where is the Runway? Do you want to build the Runway? Do you have one in front of of you? There is so much more to life than being a passenger and just having it take you for the ride. And there are some things we can't change. I don't want to downplay things like poverty, racial disparity, economics, where you were born, classism. All of those things are real. But a Runway doesn't have to be the size of the Runway at Chicago o' Hare Airport. It can be a Runway on a tiny little island in the middle of the ocean. What is your run Runway and where can you fly? 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