Do your students consider taking a trip on an airplane an amazing, exciting adventure? If they don't now, they will after learning about how Charles Lindbergh ushered in the age of commercial flight in an historic flight from New York to Paris. They'll discover how Lindbergh's early flying experiences uniquely qualified him for his flight across the Atlantic. It's a flight they won't forget, and it will teach them to appreciate their next flight experience as they never have before.

Lindbergh's own account of his historic transatlantic solo flight in 1927.

This is a new release of the original 1927 edition.

This is the autobiography of the famous flier, Charles A. Lindbergh, written almost immediately after his famous flight across the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Paris on May 20-21, 1927. This historic flight by Charles Lindbergh took him from being a little known US Postal Service Air Mail pilot and made him into one of the most famous if not the most famous person in the world. The main impetus for the flight was the $25,000 Orteig Prize offered by the French-born New York hotelier Raymond Orteig. He offered the prize to be awarded to the pilot of the first successful nonstop flight made in either direction between New York City and Paris. The book, which was also soon translated into most major languages, remained at the top of best-seller lists well into 1928, with more than 650,000 copies sold in the first year, and earned Lindbergh more than $250,000. The book's great commercial success was considerably aided by its publication coinciding with the start of his three-month tour of the United States in the Spirit on behalf of the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics. The nation became obsessed with Lindbergh during the tour in which he was seen in person by more than 30 million Americans, a quarter of the nation's then population. No other author before or since ever had such an extensive, highly publicized tour that helped promote a book than did Lindbergh's "We" of himself and the Spirit during their 22,350-mile tour of the US. He visited 82 cities in all 48 states during which the nation's nascent aviation superhero delivered 147 speeches and rode 1,290 miles in parades.

In late May 1927 an inexperienced and unassuming 25-year-old Air Mail pilot from rural Minnesota stunned the world by making the first non-stop transatlantic flight. A spectacular feat of individual daring and collective technological accomplishment, Charles Lindbergh's flight from New York to Paris ushered in the modern age of commercial aviation. In The Flight of the Century, Thomas Kessner takes a fresh look at one of America's greatest moments, explaining how what was essentially a publicity stunt became a turning point in history. Kessner vividly recreates the flight itself and the euphoric reaction to it on both sides of the Atlantic, and argues that Lindbergh's amazing feat occurred just when the world--still struggling with the disillusionment of WWI--desperately needed a hero to restore a sense of optimism and innocence. Kessner also shows how new forms of mass media made Lindbergh into the most famous international celebrity of his time, casting him in the role of a humble yet dashing American hero of rural origins and traditional values. Much has been made of Lindbergh's personal integrity and his refusal to cash in on his fame, but Kessner reveals that Lindbergh was closely allied with, and managed by, a group of powerful businessmen--Harry Guggenheim, Dwight Morrow, and Henry Breckenridge chief among them--who sought to exploit aviation for mass transport and massive profits. Their efforts paid off as commercial air traffic soared from 6,000 passengers in 1926 to 173,000 passengers in 1929. Kessner's book is the first to fully explore Lindbergh's central role in promoting the airline industry--the rise of which has influenced everything from where we live to how we wage war and do business.