On this day in 1932, Amelia Earhart lifted off from Los Angeles and did not touch the ground again until Newark, New Jersey — the first woman to cross the United States without landing. Roughly two thousand four hundred miles, and a little over nineteen hours between wheels up and wheels down. She had tried the same run a few weeks earlier and put down in Columbus for fuel, which is the sort of honest correction I admire; the second attempt simply left with the tanks and the plan sorted out.

What I keep coming back to is that a record like this is, underneath everything, one very long departure kept to schedule. Somebody in Los Angeles filled her, checked her, swung the propeller and stood clear. Somebody at Newark listened for a single engine in the dark and had the apron ready. The Vega in the photograph below — high wing, cowled radial, the crowd in straw hats keeping a respectful yard back — did not fuel or nurse itself.

The Evening Star of the next morning, below, gave the news a modest column low on the page, under her married name: lands in Newark, first woman to make the non-stop hop. Two cents, forty-six pages, and a continent crossed in one go tucked in among the day's other business.