In the 1930s, as the performance of aircraft was rapidly improving, air races and the setting of long distance flight records was very popular in Europe and North America, and were often used as publicity stunts by newspapers. A French newspaper offered a substantial monetary prize for the first aircraft to fly between Paris and Tokyo within 100 hours. Many aviators had failed in the attempt, including André Japy, the French aviator whose plane crashed into the mountains of Kyūshū on the last leg of his record attempt from Paris to Tokyo.