page_title: Charles Lindbergh
section_title: Fame
hierarchical_section_title: Charles Lindbergh / Fame
caption_attribution_description: English: Cover of the program for the "WE" Banquet given for Charles Lindbergh by the Mayor's Committee on Receptions of the City of New York on June 14, 1927
context_page_description: Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. At the age of 25 in 1927, he went from obscurity as a U.S. Air Mail pilot to instantaneous world fame by winning the Orteig Prize for making a nonstop flight from New York City to Paris. Lindbergh covered the ​33 ¹⁄₂-hour, 3,600-statute-mile flight alone in a purpose-built, single-engine Ryan monoplane, the Spirit of St. Louis. Although not the first non-stop transatlantic flight, this was the first solo transatlantic flight, the first transatlantic flight between two major city hubs, and the longest transatlantic flight by almost 2,000 miles, thus it is widely considered a turning point in the development of aviation.
  Lindbergh was an officer in the U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve, and he received the United States' highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his transatlantic flight. His achievement spurred interest in both commercial aviation and air mail, which revolutionized the aviation industry, and he devoted much time and effort to promoting such activity.
context_section_description: Lindbergh received unprecedented adulation after his historic flight. People were "behaving as though Lindbergh had walked on water, not flown over it". The New York Times printed an above the fold, page-wide headline: "LINDBERGH DOES IT!" His mother's house in Detroit was surrounded by a crowd estimated at about 1,000. Countless newspapers, magazines, and radio shows wanted to interview him, and he was flooded with job offers from companies, think tanks, and universities.
  The French Foreign Office flew the American flag, the first time it had saluted someone who wasn't a head of state. Lindbergh also made a series of brief flights to Belgium and Great Britain in the Spirit before returning to the United States. Gaston Doumergue, the President of France, bestowed the French Légion d'honneur on Lindbergh, and on his arrival back in the United States aboard the U.S. Navy cruiser USS Memphis (CL-13) on June 11, 1927, a fleet of warships and multiple flights of military aircraft escorted him up the Potomac River to the Washington Navy Yard, where President Calvin Coolidge awarded him the Distinguished Flying Cross.  Lindbergh received the first award of this medal, but it violated the authorizing regulation. Coolidge's own executive order, published in March 1927, required recipients to perform their feats of airmanship "while participating in an aerial flight as part of the duties incident to such membership [in the Organized Reserves]," which Lindbergh very clearly failed to satisfy. The U.S. Post Office Department issued a 10-cent Air Mail stamp (Scott C-10) depicting the Spirit and a map of the flight.
  Lindbergh flew from Washington, D.C. to New York City on June 13, arriving in lower Manhattan. He traveled up the Canyon of Heroes to City Hall, where he was received by Mayor Jimmy Walker. A ticker-tape parade followed to Central Park Mall, where he was honored at another ceremony hosted by New York Governor Al Smith and attended by a crowd of 200,000. Some 4,000,000 people saw Lindbergh that day. That evening,  Lindbergh was accompanied by his mother and Mayor Walker when he was the guest of honor at a 500-guest banquet and dance held at Clarence MacKay's Long Island estate, Harbor Hill.
  The following night, Lindbergh was honored with a grand banquet at the Hotel Commodore given by the Mayor's Committee on Receptions of the City of New York and attended by some 3,700 people. He was officially awarded the check for the prize on June 16.
  On July 18, 1927, Lindbergh was promoted to the rank of colonel in the Air Corps of the Officers Reserve Corps of the U.S. Army.
  On December 14, 1927, a Special Act of Congress awarded Lindbergh the Medal of Honor, despite the fact that it was almost always awarded for heroism in combat. It was presented to Lindbergh by President Coolidge at the White House on March 21. Curiously, the medal contradicted Coolidge's earlier executive order directing that "not more than one of the several decorations authorized by Federal law will be awarded for the same act of heroism or extraordinary achievement" (Lindbergh was recognized for the same act with both the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Flying Cross). The statute authorizing the award was also criticized for apparently violating procedure; House legislators reportedly neglected to have their votes counted. Similar noncombat awards of the Medal of Honor were also authorized by special statutes and awarded to naval aviators Richard E. Byrd and Floyd Bennett, as well as arctic explorer Adolphus W. Greely. In addition, the Medal of Honor awarded to General Douglas MacArthur was reportedly based on the Lindbergh precedent, although MacArthur notably lacked implementing legislation, which probably rendered his award unlawful.
  Lindbergh was honored as the first Time magazine "Man of the Year" when he appeared on that magazine's cover at age 25 January 2, 1928; he remains the youngest Man of the Year ever.
  The winner of the 1930 Best Woman Aviator of the Year Award, Elinor Smith Sullivan, said that before Lindbergh's flight,
  People seemed to thin
caption: Program for the New York "WE" Banquet (June 14, 1927)
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