Today is the start of a new, incredibly historical month. July has seen its fair share of triumphs and tragedies, which will make all the blog entries this month jam-packed with historical stories. As for today, we'll be talking about the birth of a famous English pilot, as well as the start of a World War Two battle.
In 1903, Amy Johnson (pictured above) was born in Kingston upon Hull, England. After first being introduced to the hobby of flying aircraft, she received her first pilot's license (A Licence No. 1979) in July of 1929. In that same year, Johnson became the very first woman to receive a ground engineer's "C" license. In 1932, she married Jim Mollison, a Scottish pilot who proposed to her after only eight hours of knowing her. The marriage only lasted six years. Some of her accomplishments include: being the first woman to make a solo flight from Britain to Australia (1930), setting records for flying from London to Moscow and from England to Japan (1931), and setting a solo record for flying from London to South Africa (1932). It was in 1940 that Johnson joined the Air Transport Auxiliary, an organization that helped transport the Royal Air Force's aircraft around the country. During her time in the ATA, she rose to First Officer. On January 5th, 1941, during a flight mission for the ATA, Johnson's aircraft went down. There is some controversy surrounding the reason; on story is that she hit bad weather, forcing her to bail out of her plane, while the other is that she was shot down after failing to give the correct identification code to a nearby aircraft. Amy Johnson drowned in the Thames Estuary; her body was never found.
July 1st, 1942 saw the beginning of the Battle of El Alamein. Field Marshall Erwin Rommel had his Afrika Korps in El Alamein, which is 60 miles from Alexandria, Egypt. Hitler was anticipating the addition of Egypt to his growing empire. The Allied troops, after being reinforced by supplies from the US, were ready to make another stand against the Axis forces. British General Claude Auchinleck led troops from New Zealand, South Africa, India, and Britian (British pictured above) in a fight against Rommel's army. Rommel's men were exhausted from their lack of supplies, so Auchinleck's troops quickly brought them to a standstill. Rommel was forced to be back on the defensive, which gave the war a turning point in North Africa.
The first thing on the agenda (and chronological time line), happened on July 2nd, 1900. On Lake Constance (nearby to Friedrichshafen, Germany), the very first Zeppelin flight took place (ascent shown above). Due to some malfunctions in the winding mechanism, the flight only lasted eighteen minutes. The ship had to make an emergency landing on the surface of the lake. The Zeppelin was taking back to the airplane hanger, where it then broke after falling off of its holding apparatus. After it was repaired, the craft made two more flights later on. A lack of funding led to the dismantling of the ship in 1901.
July 2nd was also a day of sadness. In 1937, Amelia Earhart (pictured above) disappeared. She had been supposed to land on Howland Island, but radio contact was lost. Her last known transmission was at 8:43 a.m. The Itasca (a Coast Guard Ship that was following her during her flight) could not reach her on her radio after that and they began to make smoke from their boilers to try to get her attention and find her. Attempts to contact her through voice and Morse code were not successful. The Itasca led many attempts to search for Earhart and her plane; they searched the area surrounding Howland Island, but nothing came up. On July 19th, search efforts were ended. It seemed that no trace of Earhart or her aircraft were to be found. There has been a lot of controversy surrounding what actually happened to her. Theories range from UFOs to the plane running out of gas to a crash landing on an unknown island. There is also a lot of speculation as to whether Earhart actually died in the accident or if she survived for some time afterward. Whatever happened, she was declared legally dead in 1939.
June 17th was also the day the Kansas City Massacre occurred. In 1933, Vernon Miller (mugshot above) lead a gang to free federal prisoner Frank Nash. Nash was being transported to the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas (the same prison he escaped from three years earlier). The gang sprung into action as Nash was being put into a transport car. Although the massacre only lasted approximately thirty seconds, four law enforcement officers were killed, as well as gang member Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd. Because of this massacre, a year later the FBI gave agents the authorization to carry firearms and make arrests (which they could not previously do).
On the topic of historical birthdays, Jacques-Yves Cousteau (pictured above) was born on this date in 1910. Cousteau was a French inventor and explorer. He also did things in ecology, writing, photography, film, and research. He specialized in the subject of the ocean, studying the sea and its inhabitants. Cousteau was a co-developer of the aqua-lung, which was one of the first underwater breathing systems.
