A PLAQUE to American aviator Amelia Earhart has been unveiled at the site of her first press conference after her record-making emergency landing outside Derry in 1932.
Having set out from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland for the French capital, Paris, a petrol leak saw her followed a railway track to Derry, landing in a field in Culmore.
On landing she became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic alone, the fastest flight time over the ocean and the only person to have flown the Atlantic twice.
Derry City and Strabane mayor Michaela Boyle unveiled the plaque at the former Northern Counties Building in recognition of the famous flier.
Then the Northern Counties Hotel, Ms Earhart gave her press conference there and sent her telegrams back to New York to let them know her trip was successful, although shorter than planned.
President Herbert Hoover replied: “You have demonstrated not only your dauntless courage, but also the capacity of women to match the skill of men in performing the most difficult feats of high adventure.”
