Amelia Earhart in a Google Doodle for 115th birthday

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Google honored Earhart on her 115th birthday anniversary by putting up a doodle on its site on July 24, 2012.

Amelia Mary Earhart ,  born July 24, 1897  and  disappeared 1937.  Earhart was the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

Earhart was a faculty member of the Purdue University aviation department in 1935  to counsel women on careers and help inspire others with her love for aviation.

She received the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross for this record. She wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences and was instrumental in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots.

She was also a member of the National Woman's Party and an early supporter of the Equal Rights AmendmentDuring an attempt to make a circumnavigational flight of the globe in 1937 in a Purdue-funded Lockheed Model 10 Electra, Earhart disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean near Howland Island. Fascination with her life, career and disappearance continues to this day.

Patti Smith published two poems dedicated to Earhart: "Amelia Earhart I" and "Amelia Earhart II" in her 1972 poetry collection Seventh Heaven.

In the Star Trek: Voyager episode "The 37's" (first aired 1995), Earhart, portrayed by Sharon Lawrence, was one of many humans abducted by an alien race in 1937, only to be found in cryo-stasis on a planet on the other side of the galaxy.

Academy Award nominee Amy Adams portrayed Earhart in Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009).

Earhart is portrayed by Hilary Swank, “In America” (2009).

A musical play titled “Amelia: The Girl Who Wants To Fly” in 2011, hosted by the Great Canadian Theatre Company.

Singer Joni Mitchell wrote a song called "Amelia" on her 1976 album, Hejira, based on Earhart's legacy. A video of her live album Shadows and Light (1980) includes the song "Amelia"

"Amelia"

I was driving across the burning desert

When I spotted six jet planes

Leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain

It was the hexagram of the heavens

It was the strings of my guitar

Amelia, it was just a false alarm

The drone of flying engines

Is a song so wild and blue

It scrambles time and seasons if it gets thru to you

Then your life becomes a travelogue

Of picture-post-card-charms

Amelia, it was just a false alarm

People will tell you where they've gone

They'll tell you where to go

But till you get there yourself you never really know

Where some have found their paradise

Other's just come to harm

Oh Amelia, it was just a false alarm

I wish that he was here tonight

It's so hard to obey

His sad request of me to kindly stay away

So this is how I hide the hurt

As the road leads cursed and charmed

I tell Amelia, it was just a false alarm

A ghost of aviation

She was swallowed by the sky

Or by the sea, like me she had a dream to fly

Like Icarus ascending

On beautiful foolish arms

Amelia, it was just a false alarm

Maybe I've never really loved

I guess that is the truth

I've spent my whole life in clouds at icy altitude

And looking down on everything

I crashed into his arms

Amelia, it was just a false alarm

I pulled into the Cactus Tree Motel

To shower off the dust

And I slept on the strange pillows of my wanderlust

I dreamed of 747s

Over geometric farms

Dreams, Amelia, dreams and false alarms