Excerpt from Chapter One

The wind tugged at her clothes. Adrenalin must have been coursing through her veins as she looked at the ground, one hundred-fifteen feet below her.

Would she jump? Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace, she believed. No one would stop her.

As she fell, drifting past the treetops, her parachute opened. Safely, it carried her to the ground. It was June 2, 1935 and history had just been made. Amelia Earhart was the first public person to jump from the tower erected by her husband, George Palmer Putnam, and Stanley Switlik.

She strongly believed that women should do for themselves what men had already done - and occasionally what men had not done - to establish themselves as persons and encourage other women toward greater independence of thought and action.

It was this philosophy that drove her to break records soaring above the clouds. She knew the hazards of attempting what had never been done before. She did not let that stop her.

As she glided toward the earth that day, she joined a long line of pioneers that had boldly chartered firsts on this land. It was not just a pine and oak forest that Amelia had landed in
that day but an area steeped in history.