A handsome, modest Minnesotan, decided to go after a $25,000 prize offered for the first nonstop solo transatlantic flight. On May 20, 1927, he took off near New York City in the Spirit of St. Louis, flew up the coast to Newfoundland, and headed over the Atlantic. The weather was so bad, he recalled, that "the average altitude for the whole second 1,000 miles of the [Atlantic] flight was less than 100 feet." After 33 hours and 29 minutes, he set down at Le Bourget airfield outside of Paris, France, amid beacons, searchlights, and mobs of enthusiastic people.

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