Amy Johnson Breaks Flight Record – On This Day In History!

May 24 – On this day in 1930, English pilot Amy Johnson became the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia. She left Croydon, England on May 5 and landed in Darwin, Australia on May 24. The 11,000 mile flight lasted 19 days!

Her husband was also a pilot, named Jim Mollison. They married in July of 1932. In November of the same year, she smashed his record for a solo flight from London to Cape Town, South Africa!

Being a girl didn't stop Amy Johnson from breaking even more flight records. She was the first person ever to fly from Lonton to Moscow in one day, and during her career she also broke the speed record for flying from England to Japan.

Amy Johnson became the first woman to qualify as a ground-engineer in December 1929. That meant she was the first girl to be licensed to say that a plane is fit to fly.