American pilot Charles Lindbergh lands in Paris, successfully completing the first non-stop trans-Atlantic flight on this day and becoming an international hero in the process.
Lindbergh was a dark horse when he entered a competition for a $25,000 payoff to anyone able to fly non-stop from New York to Paris. He ordered a small monoplane, configured it to his own design, and christened it the Spirit of St. Louis. On 20 May 1927, a rainy morning, he took off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York, his monoplane so loaded down with fuel that it barely cleared the trees at the end of the runway. He flew north and then eastward from Newfoundland, Canada. The next afternoon, after flying 3,610 miles in just over 33 hours, Lindbergh landed at Le Bourget field in Paris, becoming the first pilot to fly non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean.
