Official Kids Mag

July 24 Amelia Earhart's birthday Long before the Space Race, Americans like Amelia Earhart were exploring air travel in airplanes. Amelia was the first female aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean in 1932. Up until then, Charles Lindbergh had been the only other person in the world to do that. Amelia was also the first female awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by Congress. She set many other aviation records, and was a best- selling author. She also helped form The Ninety-Nines, a group launched by 99 female pilots whose mission was to advance women in aviation. Amelia first fell in love with flying at an air show in Long Beach, California. The very next day, she took a ride in an open-cockpit biplane for a 10-minute flight. She was hooked! Afterwards, she began taking flying lessons from another pioneer aviatrix named Anita Snook. She received her National Aeronautics Association license in December 1921, just one year after her first flight and, from then on, the sky was her limit! This was at a time when it was uncommon for women to drive cars, let alone fly airplanes! Amelia's first plane was a bright yellow Kinner Airster that she nicknamed "The Canary." Tragically, Amelia disappeared on July 2, 1937, while attempting to fly around the world along the equator. It is guessed that her plane ran out of gas and crashed into the sea, but she, along with her navigator and her plane, were never found July 20 National Moon Day This day celebrates when humans first set foot on the moon, in 1969. American astronauts Neil Armstrong, and Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin and Michael Collins went up into space on July 16, 1969. Four days later, Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to land and walk on the moon, while Collins stayed in orbit around the Moon. Their mission, Apollo 11, was part of something called "The Space Race." It was a sort of competition between the United States and the Soviet Union to see who could be the first country to go into space. The ultimate goal of the race was landing on the moon. President John F. Kennedy announced in 1961 the goal of sending a man to the moon by the end of the 1960s. Although the Soviet Union was first to send a human into space, the US won the race at 10:56 P.M. on July 20, when Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon's surface, and said these famous words: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Here are some more moon facts: 1. The moon is 238,855 miles away from Earth. Even if you're speeding through space in a rocket ship, it will take more than three days to get there. 2. In space, there is no gravity to hold astronauts down, so they float around in their spaceships. That's sometimes called zero-g. 3. Gravity on the moon is only one-sixth as strong as gravity on Earth. So if you jumped on the moon, you'd go six times higher. Awesome! 4. An African-American woman named Katherine Johnson came up with the calculations that made the mission to the moon possible and got the astronauts safely home again. July 31 - Harry Potter's birthday Harry Potter, (for those of you who have been living under a rock!) is the fictional boy wizard created by British author J.K. Rowling in her Harry Potter book series. The first book, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," was first published in 1997. Harry's adventures begin in that book on his 11th birthday, (July 31st) when he learns he is a wizard. (Coincidentally, that's the author J.K. Rowling's birthday too!) There are six more incredibly popular books in the series, and they have been made into eight films. While Harry Potter is not an actual real-live person, he was based on a real person! J.K. Rowling based the Harry Potter character on her neighbor Ian Potter who lived just four doors down from her when she was a child. Harry Potter's birthday is a great day to start reading— or re-reading—all the books in the series that have sold more than 450 million copies worldwide. www.of f icialKidsMag.com • July 2021 • 7

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