Ameila Earhart worked to prove herself and women pilots equal to the the men, to disabuse both sides of that old canard that women are the weaker half. Along the way “Lady Lindy” would set records and encourage women to join her in the skies as aviators. Hers was a gradual process, as she first became known to the public for flying across the Atlantic not as the pilot, but as a passenger.

On this day, June 18, in 1928 Amelia Earhart flew from Newfoundland, Canada to Wales with Wilmer Stultz and Louis Gordon in their Fokker tri-motor airplane, the first woman to cross the Atlantic by air. Although she was already an experienced aviatrix at the time, she was not familiar with that model plane, and did not touch the controls. She still earned a large amount of fame from the journey, even having a parade thrown in her honor.

Earhart remarked that she was essentially “baggage” on that flight, and worked diligently to make a name for herself as a real pilot. Four years later, on the anniversary of Charles Lindbergh’s famous transatlantic flight, Earhart repeated his route, the first woman to do so. She also organized a woman pilots club she called “The 99s”, which had 99 of the 117 total licensed female pilots at the time.