Charles Lindbergh took off from a muddy airstrip on Long Island in a single-engine monoplane loaded with fuel, beginning a grueling 33.5-hour journey to Paris that would make him an instant global celebrity. His flight proved the feasibility of long-distance air travel and helped launch the era of commercial aviation.
Lindbergh, a 25-year-old airmail pilot largely unknown outside aviation circles, had convinced a group of St. Louis businessmen to back his attempt at the Orteig Prize—$25,000 for the first nonstop flight between New York and Paris. Several better-funded and more famous aviators had already died trying.
His plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, was stripped of every unnecessary ounce of weight—no radio, no parachute, and a periscope instead of a forward windshield since the fuel tank blocked his view. He navigated by dead reckoning, fighting sleep deprivation and icing conditions over the North Atlantic.
When he landed at Le Bourget Field near Paris roughly 33 hours later, an estimated 150,000 people swarmed the airfield in celebration. Lindbergh returned to America a hero of unprecedented scale, feted with parades and a level of global fame that historians compare to the moon landing's astronauts.