Why would people immediately forget about a big moment in history? Maybe because they never heard much about it in the first place. Modern history is written by the press because news accounts are so readily archived. It's the headlines that are talked about and remembered, and if you are unfortunate enough to get your 15 minutes of fame while something else dominates those headlines, you won't get much publicity, and you may end up as just a footnote in history. Like Harriet Quimby, who deserves to be known and remembered.
Harriet Quimby is the kind of badass Disney princess who breaks records as easily as she breaks the mold. While her pretty face landed her a modeling gig for a soft drink company and her quick wits allowed her to write six Hollywood movies, it was her eagle eyes and quick reflexes that made her the first female American ace pilot. But while she was in the air breaking some glass ceilings, some dumb dudes were in the water smashing into an iceberg.
In 1911, the 35-year-old Quimby became the first woman in the U.S., and only the seventh in the whole world, to earn her pilot's license and she was branded "America's First Lady of the Air." But for Quimby, being part of the flyboys' club wasn't enough, she wanted to run the joint. So not even a year after getting her license, Quimby did what only a single man had done before: pilot a solo flight across the English Channel in what was pretty much a wooden hot tub with a propeller taped to it.
There's more to the story, which you should read because Quimby's astonishing accomplishment was buried under the other headlines of the day- the sinking of the Titanic. Her story and five others are at Cracked.
(Image credit: Library of Congress)