Charles Lindbergh
Son of Charles A. Lindbergh Sr..
Charles Augustus Lindbergh (nicknamed "Slim," "Lucky Lindy" and "The Lone Eagle") was an American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist.
Lindbergh, then a 25-year old U.S. Air Mail pilot, emerged from virtual obscurity to almost instantaneous world fame as the result of his Orteig Prize-winning solo non-stop on May 20–21, 1927, from Roosevelt Field located in Garden City on New York's Long Island to Le Bourget Field in Paris, France, a distance of nearly 3,600 statute miles, in the single-seat, single-engine monoplane Spirit of St. Louis. Lindbergh, a U.S. Army reserve officer, was also awarded the nation's highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his historic exploit.
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Lindbergh relentlessly used his fame to help promote the rapid development of U.S. commercial aviation. In March 1932, however, his infant son, Charles, Jr., was kidnapped and murdered in what was soon dubbed the "Crime of the Century" which eventually led to the Lindbergh family fleeing the United States in December 1935 to live in Europe where they remained up until the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by the Imperial Japanese Navy. Before the United States declared World War II on December 8, 1941, Lindbergh had been an outspoken advocate of keeping the U.S. out of the world conflict, as was his Congressman father, Charles August Lindbergh (R-MN), during World War I, and became a leader of the anti-war America First movement. Nonetheless, he supported the war effort after Pearl Harbor and flew many combat missions in the Pacific Theater of World War II as a civilian consultant, even though President Franklin D. Roosevelt had refused to reinstate his Army Air Corps colonel's commission that he had resigned earlier in 1939.
In his later years, Lindbergh became a prolific prize-winning author, international explorer, inventor, and active environmentalist.
“Whether outwardly or inwardly, whether in space or time, the farther we penetrate the unknown, the vaster and more marvelous it becomes.”
“From now on, depressions will be scientifically created.”
“The financial system has been turned over to the Federal Reserve Board. That board administers the finance system by authority of a purely profiteering group. The system is private, conducted for the sole purpose of obtaining the greatest possible profits from the use of other people's money.”
“To a person in love, the value of the individual is intuitively known. Love needs no logic for its mission.”
“I realized that If I had to choose,I would rather have birds than airplanes.”
“It's the greatest shot of adrenaline to be doing what you have wanted to do so badly. You almost feel like you could fly without a plane.”
“Science is insulating man from life - separating his mind from his senses. The worst of it is that it soon anaesthetises his senses so that he doesn't know what he's missing.”
“I realized that If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes. In wilderness I sense the miracle of life, and behind it our scientific accomplishments fade to trivia. Real freedom lies in wildness, not in civilization.”
“I believe the risks I take are justified by the sheer love of the life I lead.”