Charles A. Lindbergh.

In 1927, just prior to his historic flight, Lindbergh was nearly grounded by William P. MacCracken, Jr., a government aeronautics official. Lindbergh had been engaging in barnstorming and daredevil flights in government planes and had actually wrecked several of them. Only after Lindbergh’s supervisor promised to restrain his behavior did MacCracken relent and allow Lindbergh to make his historic flight.

His record-setting flight over the Atlantic Ocean failed to make the cover of Time Magazine in 1927. Later that year, seeking to fill in a slow news week and make up for missing the story earlier, the editors of Time created their Man of the Year honorific, devoting an entire issue to how influential the flight was and making Lindy himself the first person ever to receive that title.

He had three children with German hat-maker Brigitte Hesshaimer: Dirk born 1958, Astrid born 1960, and David born 1967. They managed to keep the affair secret until Astrid disclosed it in 2003, two years after both Ms. Hesshaimer and Mrs. Lindbergh had died. DNA tests have confirmed the truth of these assertions.

From the mid-1950s he was a consultant and director of Pan-American Airways.

In 1954 he was named a brigadier general in the US Air Force Reserves for his long-term service to the US government.

Prior to Pearl Harbor, Lindbergh outraged the American public by advocating America’s entry into World War II on the side of Nazi Germany.

In 1927 he became the first pilot to fly an airplane across the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Paris. The race to cross the Atlantic had been attempted by the best pilots of the time, most of whom had made names for themselves during World War I. One of them was Richard E. Byrd Jr., who was later the first man to fly over the South Pole. With that competition, Lindbergh was seen as an outsider and had problems getting financial backing and a plane. He finally got money from a small company in St. Louis, MO, which named his plane the Spirit of St. Louis for the publicity. What separated Lindbergh from his competition was that he was the only pilot in the running who was going to fly a single-engine plane and the only pilot who was willing to fly alone. One of the chief reasons for his success was that most of his competition had either crashed or had mechanical or financial problems.

During World War II, he rose to the rank of Brigadier General in the US Army Air Corps, and in 1948, when the AAC separated from the army to become the US Air Force, he went along and kept that same rank. During WWII he specifically requested Pacific theater assignments only, since he had been a strong and vocal supporter and admirer of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

Children with Anne Morrow Lindbergh: Charles Lindbergh Jr. June 22, 1930 – March 2, 1932, Jon Lindbergh b. 1932, Land b. 1937, Anne October 2, 1940 – December 10, 1993, Scott b. 1942, and Reeve Lindbergh b. 1945.

On May 4, 1928 he was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal 45 Stat. 490.

When Lindbergh landed in France after his historic flight, one of the first reporters to reach him was William L. Shirer.

Inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame in 1965.