Charles Lindbergh testifies before the U.S. Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler.
Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. At the age of 25, he went from obscurity as a U.S. Air Mail pilot to instantaneous world fame by winning the Orteig Prize for making the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris on May 20–21, 1927. Lindbergh covered the 33+1⁄2-hour, 3,600-statute-mile (5,800 km) flight alone in a purpose-built, single-engine Ryan monoplane, the Spirit of St. Louis. Though the first non-stop transatlantic flight had been completed eight years earlier, this was the first solo transatlantic flight, the first transatlantic flight between two major city hubs, and the longest transatlantic flight by almost 2,000 miles. It is widely considered one of the most consequential flights in aviation history and ushered in a new era of transportation between parts of the globe.
Lindbergh was raised mostly in Little Falls, Minnesota and Washington, D.C., the son of prominent U.S. Congressman from Minnesota Charles August Lindbergh. He became an officer in the U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve in 1924, earning the rank of second lieutenant in 1925. Later that year, he was hired as a U.S. Air Mail pilot in the Greater St. Louis area, where he started to prepare for his historic 1927 transatlantic flight. Lindbergh received the United States' highest military decoration from President Calvin Coolidge, the Medal of Honor, as well as the Distinguished Flying Cross for his transatlantic flight. The flight also earned him the highest French order of merit, civil or military, the Legion of Honour. His achievement spurred significant global interest in both commercial aviation and air mail, which revolutionized the aviation industry worldwide (described then as the "Lindbergh boom"), and he devoted much time and effort to promoting such activity. He was honored as Time's first "Man of the Year" in 1928, was appointed to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1929 by President Herbert Hoover, and was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal in 1930. In 1931, he and French surgeon Alexis Carrel began work on inventing the first perfusion pump, which is credited with making future heart surgeries and organ transplantation possible.
On March 1, 1932, Lindbergh's infant son, Charles Jr., was kidnapped and murdered in what the American media called the "Crime of the Century." The case prompted the United States Congress to establish kidnapping as a federal crime if a kidnapper crosses state lines with a victim. By late 1935, the hysteria surrounding the case had driven the Lindbergh family into exile in Europe, from where they returned in 1939.
In the years before the United States entered World War II, Lindbergh's non-interventionist stance and statements about Jews and race led some to suspect he was a Nazi sympathizer, although Lindbergh never publicly stated support for Nazi Germany and on multiple occasions condemned them in both his public speeches and in his personal diary. However, early on in the war he opposed not only the intervention of the United States but also the provision of aid to the United Kingdom. He supported the antiwar America First Committee and resigned his commission in the U.S. Army Air Forces in April 1941 after President Franklin Roosevelt publicly rebuked him for his views. In September 1941, Lindbergh gave a significant address, titled "Speech on Neutrality", outlining his views and arguments against greater American involvement in the war.Lindbergh did ultimately express public support for the U.S. war effort after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent United States declaration of war upon Germany. He flew 50 missions in the Pacific Theater as a civilian consultant but did not take up arms, as Roosevelt refused to reinstate his Air Corps colonel's commission. In 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower restored his commission and promoted him to brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. In his later years, Lindbergh became a prolific author, international explorer, inventor, and environmentalist, eventually dying of lymphoma in 1974 at age 72.