On this day ...

... in 1932, Amelia Earhart took off from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, beginning the world's first solo transatlantic flight by a woman; she landed in Northern Ireland thirteen and a half hours later.  This archival image from our provincial museum, The Rooms, shows her in front of the Cochrane Hotel in St John's (just a few blocks from my house -- though, to be fair, anywhere in downtown St John's fits that description!) with Bernt Balchen (left), a navigator and engineer hired by Earhart as a technical advisor, and Lewis L'Esperance, a representative of the Shell Oil Company.