Amelia Earhart lived for adventure, and was never happier than when she was about to face a challenge. You can see how broadly she's smiling here in this picture, as she packs for her attempt to become the first woman in history to circumnavigate the globe in a plane. Sadly, it was to be a trip she'd never return from. Earhart's plane got into difficulty on July 2nd, 1937, radioing for assistance and reporting that it was running low on fuel and flying low.
An unprecedented search and rescue effort followed, but no trace of Earhart or her plane was ever found. There have been several theories about what happened next, which range from alien abduction to a simple case of crashing into the sea and sinking, but as more than eighty years have passed, it now seems likely that we'll never know for sure What we do know is that the world had lost a very brave woman far too soon, at the age of only 39.