Flying had always been one of the greatest dreams of mankind. At the end of the 18th century, the Montgolfier brothers built the first hot air balloons. A hundred years later the airship was invented, which unlike the balloon could be controlled during flight. But the great milestone of air travel came on 1903, when the Wright brothers succeeded in carrying out the first powered flight in history. Thereafter, the world distances shrunk and aeronautical technology evolved into today’s commercial aircraft and spacecraft. Air travel was rare but the people was nonetheless fascinated by its magic.

Both the press and the public will sing the praises of American aviator Charles Lindbergh for weeks. Actually, he was not the first to cross the Atlantic by air (an American seaplane and a British plane did so in 1919), but he was the first to have done so alone. All the newspapers closely followed the odyssey and transmitted to their readers the slightest information on the flight. Lindbergh entered into legend when he landed at Le Bourget airport after a 33-hour journey aboard his plane, the Spirit of Saint Louis, where 200,000 people were waiting.