This is the story of Amelia Earhart. She was a young girl in 1920, many, many, many years ago. In those days, aeroplanes were just invented. There were not too many aeroplanes in the world—very few.
Aeroplanes were flying everywhere, but only men used to fly them. There were no girls flying aeroplanes because, in those days, girls did not study too much.
So Amelia Earhart said, "I want to become a pilot." She loved planes.
And everybody said, "Oh, girls cannot become pilots. Girls cannot become pilots."
But Amelia Earhart's daddy said, "No, you will become a pilot if you want to become a pilot."
So he taught her everything about physics and chemistry, and she went to pilot school. But nobody took her seriously. They said, "No, girls cannot become pilots."
And she asked, "Who says girls cannot become pilots?"
And they said, "No, it's very dangerous if girls become pilots. Girls are not good drivers. They can crash the plane."
So they rejected her. She was very unhappy, but she said, "I'm going to try."
She wrote in newspapers, she campaigned, she told the ministers. And the next year, she went for the exam again. She passed all the exams to become a pilot—her eye test, the simulator test, the driving test. But they still failed her, just on some silly excuse.
Then she said, "The third year, I have to do something different to get passed, because these guys are not judging me on my capability but are biased."
So she said, "What should I do?"
They said, "What you do is, you do something else which is close to flying and which does not require you to pass a test. There's something known as hang gliding. You can take a very big kite, hold it, and jump down a mountain. It goes slowly, and then you can navigate it. It's very dangerous and very scary."
So she said, "I'm going to try it."
She went and took some paragliding classes. Again, they were a bit scared to let a girl do it because, in those days, no girl had done it. But she forced herself, and they saw that she was dedicated. She became the best paraglider. Everybody took pictures of her. It came in the newspapers that she was doing paragliding, and she did very beautifully.
And then they let her take the exam again the next year. And this time, they had to pass her because everybody knew that she was a very good paraglider.
And then she became a pilot. She got the classes, and she got a flying license.
And she started flying the big planes—the passenger planes. All the planes which go from Singapore to London, London to New York, Germany to US. All those planes she was flying.
She became the first woman pilot of the world, and everybody—people used to even feel scared to go in her plane because they felt, "Oh my God, it's a girl pilot. Maybe she'll crash the plane."
And then sometimes the planes used to go empty because nobody wanted to go on those planes. And she got very upset.
So she said, "To prove everybody wrong, I will take a small plane, one plane, and fly around the world."
In those days, planes were not flying around the world. They used to only fly 2-3 hours.
So she took a small plane and she said, "I'm going to go around the world."
She started from Singapore, and then one day from Singapore, she flew to Malaysia and she landed. And then from Malaysia, she flew to Indonesia. And from Indonesia, she flew to Bali. And from Bali, she flew to Perth in Australia. And from Perth, she went to Sydney.
It's all okay till now. Now her longest flight was from Sydney to London. That was a 12-hour flight, and there's only water—there's nothing there.
So she said, "I have to plan something."
There was a small island in the middle, and she said, "I'm going to land there. But there's no fuel." So she took extra fuel in her plane.
She landed on the small island, which was very difficult. And then she physically put fuel in the plane. And then it was very difficult to take off again because there was not enough runway. But she kept trying, kept trying, and then finally, she was able to take off, just a little bit.
And then she flew all the way to London. From London to Germany. And then Germany to New York. And then New York back to Russia. From Russia to China. And then China to Singapore.
So she had gone around the world in a plane, all alone. And it took her 25 days. She had landed in the most dangerous places and flown across the world.
And then she put it in the newspaper. She became the first—not only the first girl, but the first person to fly around the world. Amelia Earhart. And she became very famous.
And then people asked her in an interview, "Why did you do this? It was so dangerous."
She said, "I did it because people were still scared to sit in the plane with me. I want to show them that I am such a good pilot, I can go around the whole world."
And then people, slowly, slowly, started sitting in her plane. And she became very famous and a very safe pilot.
After that, many other girls started becoming pilots because they saw Amelia Earhart was the first woman pilot. And then many, many, many girls became pilots, and it became very common for girls to become pilots.
So she was the first one who—BOOM—she punched her way into becoming a pilot. And she broke a taboo. And she broke a myth that girls cannot become pilots. Girls can do everything, and better than boys. That's what she proved.
