This Amelia Earhart trivia quiz has 59 free questions with answers and follows the aviator from her birth in Atchison, Kansas, through nursing wounded soldiers in Toronto, her first lesson with Neta Snook, the yellow biplane she called the Canary, the 1928 Atlantic crossing on which she felt like "a sack of potatoes", the 1932 solo flight that landed in an Irish pasture, the records in the Vega and the autogiro, the marriage to George Putnam, the Ninety-Nines and Purdue, and finally the Lockheed Electra, Fred Noonan, Howland Island, the cutter Itasca and the theories that have swirled ever since. The easy questions are ones most people know (which ocean she vanished over, which nickname the press gave her). The medium ones cover her aircraft, her records and her firsts. The hard ones ask about the farm hand's question in Culmore, the newspaper she carried to prove her date, the chewing-gum company that lent her an autogiro and the letter she handed her husband on their wedding day. Every answer has been checked against a reference encyclopaedia, and each question shows its explanation and citation once you have answered.
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Q 01In which US state was Amelia Earhart born in 1897?
Kansas
She was born in her grandfather's house in Atchison, which is now the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum.
Q 02Over which ocean did Earhart disappear on 2 July 1937?
The Pacific
She was trying to become the first woman to fly around the world.
Q 03During the First World War, Earhart worked as a nurse's aide in a military hospital in which city?
Toronto
She had gone there to visit her sister at Christmas 1917 and saw wounded soldiers returning from the front.
Q 04Who gave Earhart her first flying lesson in January 1921?
Neta Snook
Earhart had saved $1,000 for lessons working as a photographer, truck driver and stenographer.
Q 05What nickname did Earhart give her first aeroplane, a yellow Kinner Airster biplane?
The Canary
Yellow Peril was her car, a Kissel Speedster, and Old Bessie was a later Lockheed Vega.
Q 06In October 1922 Earhart set a women's world record by flying to what altitude?
14,000 feet
The following May she became the 16th woman in the United States to receive an FAI pilot's licence.
Q 07Earhart worked in 1925 as a social worker at Denison House, a settlement house in which city?
Boston
She also sold Kinner aircraft locally and became vice president of the American Aeronautical Society's Boston chapter.
Q 08On the 1928 flight that made her the first woman to cross the Atlantic by air, what was Earhart's role?
Passenger
Wilmer Stultz flew the plane; Earhart said afterwards, "I was just baggage, like a sack of potatoes."
Q 09What was the name of the Fokker seaplane that carried Earhart across the Atlantic in 1928?
Friendship
Sponsor Amy Phipps Guest chose the name to honour the relationship between the United States and her adopted Britain.
Q 10The 1928 transatlantic flight ended with a landing in an estuary in which country?
Wales
The crew came down at Burry Port in Carmarthenshire, then flew on to Southampton.
Q 11What nickname did the press give Earhart because of her resemblance to Charles Lindbergh?
Lady Lindy
They also called her "Queen of the Air".
Q 12Earhart's first book, about the 1928 crossing, was titled with the flight's duration. What was it called?
20 Hrs. 40 Min.
Her own log said the flight really took 20 hours and 49 minutes.
Q 13Which magazine hired Earhart as an associate editor, a platform she used to promote flying?
Cosmopolitan
She focused especially on encouraging women to enter aviation.
Q 21Which US military decoration did Congress award Earhart for the 1932 solo crossing?
The Distinguished Flying Cross
France made her a Knight of the Legion of Honour and President Hoover gave her the National Geographic Society's Gold Medal.
Q 22In January 1935 Earhart became the first person to fly solo from Honolulu to which mainland city?
Oakland
Later that year she also flew solo from Los Angeles to Mexico City and from Mexico City to Newark.
Q 23In 1935 Amelia Earhart joined which university as a visiting faculty member and aeronautics adviser?
Purdue
The university funded her Lockheed Electra with $50,000 and later named a residence hall and airport terminal after her.
Q 14In April 1931 Earhart set an altitude record of 18,415 feet in an autogyro borrowed from which company?
Beech-Nut Chewing Gum
She was the first woman to fly an autogyro and the first to cross the United States in one.
Q 15Earhart helped found and was the first elected president of which organisation for women pilots?
The Ninety-Nines
The group still maintains her birthplace museum in Atchison.
Q 16Whom did Earhart marry in February 1931?
George Palmer Putnam
The publisher and publicist had promoted her since 1928; the wedding was at his mother's house in Noank, Connecticut.
Q 17In a wedding-day letter, Earhart said she would not hold her husband to any 'midaevil code' of what?
Faithfulness
She called the marriage a partnership with "dual control" and kept her own name.
Q 18Earhart's 1932 solo Atlantic flight took off from Harbour Grace in which territory?
Newfoundland
She carried a copy of the Telegraph-Journal to prove the date of departure.
Q 19Which aircraft did Earhart fly solo across the Atlantic in 1932?
A Lockheed Vega
She had hoped to reach Paris like Lindbergh five years earlier.
Q 20Earhart's 1932 solo flight ended in a pasture near Culmore, in which part of the world?
Northern Ireland
When a farm hand asked, "Have you flown far?" she replied, "From America."
Q 24What did Earhart call the twin-engine Lockheed Electra 10E she flew on her final journey?
The flying laboratory
It was bought with $50,000 from the Amelia Earhart Fund for Aeronautical Research at Purdue.
Q 25Who was Earhart's navigator on the final leg of the 1937 round-the-world attempt?
Fred Noonan
A licensed ship's captain, he had set up most of Pan Am's China Clipper routes across the Pacific.
Q 26From which airfield did Earhart and Noonan take off on 2 July 1937, never to be seen again?
Lae, New Guinea
They had arrived there on 29 June after stops across South America, Africa and Asia.
Q 27What was the intended destination of Earhart's final flight?
Howland Island
The island is a flat sliver about 6,500 feet long and 10 feet high, more than 2,500 miles from Lae.
Q 28Which US Coast Guard cutter was stationed at the destination island to guide Earhart in by radio?
Itasca
It received her voice loud and clear but she could never hear it, and its direction-finder could not tune to her frequency.
Q 29What was the radio call sign of Earhart's Electra?
KHAQQ
Her last transmission gave a line of position of 157-337 degrees that should have passed through the island.
Q 30In which year was Earhart declared legally dead?
1939
The declaration came on 5 January, eighteen months after she vanished.