Free Republic

Jon Lindbergh, a pioneering aquanaut and the son of legendary aviator Charles Lindbergh, has died aged 88. He passed away on July 29 after a battle with metastatic renal cancer, his daughter told the New York Times. While his father took to the skies, Jon took to the ocean - carving out a name for himself scavenging the depths of the seas as one of the world's earliest aquanauts. He pioneered cave diving and participated in dangerous underwater rescues - including one to find a hydrogen bomb that was lost in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Spain in...

On this date in 1936, a German immigrant went to New Jersey’s electric chair for kidnapping and murdering the infant son of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh. The kidnapping of the Lindbergh boy in 1932 had touched off an outpouring of public compassion matched only by the clumsiness of the investigation. The circus that formed around a father desperate to retrieve his boy — and prone to rash decision-making thereto — pulled in underworld figures, military intelligence officers (including the founder of the CIA’s forerunner and the father of Gulf War General Norman Schwartzkopf), a meddlesome schoolteacher, and queer characters like...

It is now two years since this latest European war began. From that day in September, 1939, until the present moment, there has been an over-increasing effort to force the United States into the conflict. That effort has been carried on by foreign interests, and by a small minority of our own people; but it has been so successful that, today, our country stands on the verge of war. At this time, as the war is about to enter its third winter, it seems appropriate to review the circumstances that have led us to our present position. Why are we...

A view of the Rio Platano biosphere reserve in Honduras, where explorers over the past century have claimed several times to have spotted the White City Honduras said Thursday it was starting a major archeological dig for a mysterious, ancient "White City" supposedly hidden in jungle in its northeast that explorers and legends have spoken of for centuries. "Today a group of archeologists and scientists is traveling to the White City to start excavations in coming days," President Juan Orlando Hernandez said in a speech to private universities. The hope is that they will uncover incontrovertible proof of the existence...

Each had his own reasons, but back in the 1930s each of those men thought that the Nazis were, well, just a bunch of swell guys. Never mind that the Nazis were violent, both in words and in deeds. I mention this because we are seeing the same thing today. Our betters are lining up to tell us that there is nothing wrong with Islamic culture. Never mind that culture's violence, both in words and in deeds.

When Hilda Gurney’s name crops up, they love to tell stories about her switcheroo involving aviator Charles Lindbergh at the Van Nuys Airport. The pilot and her co­pilot husband, Harlan “Bud” Gurney, decided in 1969 to take out a small plane, and Lindbergh — a close friend of the family who often stayed with them when he was in Los Angeles — asked if he could fly alongside. But the press got wind of the renowned aviator up in the SoCal skies, and reporters descended upon the airport to wait for his landing. Wise to the plan, Lindbergh and the...

No flight of fancy: German siblings prove Lindbergh was their father By Andrew Gumbel 29 November 2003 Fans of the pioneering American aviator Charles Lindbergh have had to swallow a few uncomfortable facts about their hero over the years, such as his sympathy for the Nazis, his campaigning against the involvement of the United States in the Second World War and his anti-Semitism. Now comes a new, seemingly incontrovertible bit of awkward news: DNA evidence confirming that Mr Lindbergh, who made the first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean, had a secret, second family in Germany with a Munich hatmaker,...

The Google Map of eastern Honduras is almost blank. A vast and virtually unexplored rainforest region known as the Mosquitia covers around 32,000 square miles, home to dense jungle, hostile terrain and the terrifying-sounding jumping viper. Legend has it that somewhere beneath the forest canopy lies the ancient city of Ciudad Blanca – and now archaeologists think they may have found it. Tomorrow in Cancun, Mexico, an interdisciplinary group of scientists from fields including archaeology, anthropology and geology will appear at the American Geophysical Union’s annual conference to present the technology that has allowed them to discover a “lost world”...

Through some incredibly persistent sleuthing, consultation with specialists in modern criminal investigative analysis, and a good dose of luck, author Robert Zorn has solved what has been correctly called “the crime of the century”: the Lindbergh kidnapping. And so the [Hauptmann] case ended with as many questions open as answered, all of which are laid out in Cemetery John with precision. And then, with new evidence and equal precision, the author proceeds to answer each one.

A Countryman Tries to Unravel the Unsolved Mystery of Charles Nungesser's Last Flight PARIS—Right after his historic, 33-hour trans-Atlantic flight from New York to Paris in 1927, Charles Lindbergh asked whether there was news of French aviator Charles Nungesser. Mr. Nungesser, an adventurer and World War I ace, was Mr. Lindbergh's great rival in the race to fly nonstop across the Atlantic in one direction or the other. He had set off with a navigator from Paris for New York just two weeks before Mr. Lindbergh's flight. But his biplane—called L'Oiseau Blanc, or White Bird—never arrived in New York, and...

SANTA CRUZ — The man who opened the door of an Ocean Street hotel room offered a deadpan introduction. "I'm Charles Lindbergh Jr. Please, come in." Immaculately dressed in suspenders, a starched white shirt, tie and gray dress slacks, the 79-year-old launched into detailed stories of a troubled childhood and why people should believe he's the son of Col. Charles A. Lindbergh — aka "Lucky Lindy," the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic in the famed Spirit of St. Louis. Most people accept that Charles Lindbergh Jr., the first son of the famous aviator, was kidnapped and killed...

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. -- It was 80 years ago Monday that Charles Lindbergh left Roosevelt Field on Long Island for the first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. It was a misty, drizzly morning, and there was not a big crowd as Lindbergh climbed into the plane, revved the engine and headed east from what now is The Source mall on Old Country Road. The plane took off about 7:50 a.m. down the grassy field headed to Paris. Joshua Stoff at the Cradle of Aviation at Mitchel Field says Lindbergh's flight changed the way that people looked at aviation. People began...

Authors start off about how the city has given much to the Navy (MY COMMENT: the city and the Navy do get along well, but...) and it's time for the Navy to give back...note where they complain the Navy didn't pay fair market value for the property in the beginning, how the land at Miramar and North Island is valuable commercially and residentially, and that it could help solve the cities pension crisis. BEGIN ARTICLE As the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority works to place a proposition on the November ballot regarding a new airport site in San Diego,...

AP) Little Falls, Minn. It has been reported many times that the residents of Little Falls were so angry with hometown hero Charles Lindbergh's comments that the U.S. should stay out of World War II that they painted over his name on the water tower. The story was part of a PBS documentary about the famous pilot. It was reported in a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography released in 1999. However, many experts doubt it happened. "I've heard the stories but I've never seen the documentation myself," said Marlene White, president of the Anoka-based Lindbergh Foundation. There are some newspaper articles from...

Airport planners have come up with an idea for developing a second runway at Lindbergh Field without Marine Corps property, but some say the notion is so outlandish it actually helps make the case for building a new regional airport elsewhere. A committee of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority yesterday recommended that the full board of directors authorize additional study of the concept for a new, 10,000-foot runway through the Midway District. Committee members aren't yet treating the concept as a serious alternative to proposed airport sites in Boulevard and Imperial County, and openly fretted over misunderstandings...

BERLIN, Germany (Reuters) -- American aviator Charles Lindbergh had three German mistresses simultaneously and seven secret children whom he visited and supported for decades, according to a new book published on Monday. Eighteen months after genetic tests proved earlier claims by three Germans that Lindbergh was their father, their book called "The Double Life of Charles A. Lindbergh" says he fathered two more children with their aunt and two with his German secretary. Lindbergh, who also had six children with his U.S. wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh, became world famous for his daring 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic from New...

SpaceShipOne visionary Peter Diamandis wasn't thinking about history as he stood in the Mojave desert and watched a small, shuttlecock-shaped craft glide back to Earth having nudged the edge of space. He just thought it looked beautiful. It was only the following day, after the thousands of cheering spectators had disappeared, after the jubilant speeches had dried up along with the champagne, as Diamandis was driving his father back to Los Angeles, that euphoria — and relief — swept over him. So many people had trusted him, backed him, bailed him out even when others had ridiculed his notion of...

Once again, The Point has another exclusive. We can report that George W. Bush was responsible for the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby. Using the same innovative investigative techniques and document authentication procedures developed by Dan Rather and 60 Minutes, we've linked this handwritten note from George Bush to Bruno Hauptmann, the man who was convicted of kidnapping and murdering the son of the famous aviator, Charles Lindbergh. Now some have suggested this note bears little resemblance to Bush's handwriting and looks more like a document prepared in Microsoft's Power Point slide preparation software. But those critics are driven only...

The United States has made mistakes, but those who would judge our behavior and our record should look to real historians and real historical contexts, not the fabricated conspiracies of Noam Chomsky and his ilk. The United States has been taking its share of hits lately as the Iraq war has stimulated the literary appetite of American critics and given birth to a slew of books sharply critical of the world's lone superpower. That the most recent books have been aimed at the Bush administration is no surprise, but there is nevertheless nothing particularly new in such works as Hegemony...

MUNICH, Germany (AFP) - DNA tests have confirmed that all-American hero and aviator Charles Lindbergh fathered three illegitimate children in Germany, their spokesman said. In a statement, he said the tests supported their assertions that Lindbergh, who won instant celebrity for making the first solo, non-stop transatlantic flight in 1927, was their father. The probes, examined by a Munich university medical centre, compared their DNA with a sample from a member of Lindbergh's family. The result, handed in writing to the three last week, showed a probability of paternity of more than 99 percent."They never had any doubt about the...