In 1927, aviator Charles Lindbergh accomplished the then-unprecedented feat of flying solo across the Atlantic Ocean. "Lucky Lindy" departed New York's Roosevelt Field at 7:52 A.M. on May 20. Thirty-three and a half hours later, he landed his plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, at Le Bourget Field, on the outskirts of Paris. The nonstop flight, which covered 3,610 miles, instantly transformed the twenty-five-year-old flyer into an international celebrity and media star. He was hailed throughout Europe. He was honored with parades in New York and Washington. President Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) presented him with the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Lindbergh was destined to make headlines not only for his aviation feats. In what was one of the most notorious and highly publicized crimes of the twentieth century, his twenty-month-old son was kidnapped from the family's New Jersey compound in 1932. The infant's body eventually was discovered in the nearby woods...