Linda Finch flight of Earhart was known as "World Flight 1997." Finch's flight marked the 60th anniversary of Earhart's failed effort as well as centennial of her birth. History records that Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, the first woman to fly nonstop across the United States and first woman to fly from Hawaii to the west coast of California. The whole world was watching Amelia Earhart when she began her global attempt and of course then mourned her when the plane came up missing without a trace. Earhart was lost somewhere in the south Pacific
Amelia Earhart at the rickety "flivver" was enough for Earhart, who promptly asked if they could go back to the merry-go-round. She later described the biplane as "a thing of rusty wire and wood and not at all interesting". The two sisters, Amelia and Muriel (she went by her middle name from her teens on), remained with their grandparents in Atchison, while their parents moved into new, smaller quarters in Des Moines. During this period, Earhart received a form of home-schooling together with her sister, from her mother and a governess. She later recounted that she was "exceedingly fond of reading" and