This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. Liberty has never been just a word to we Americans. It has guided every one of our endeavors for the past 250 years, and now it takes form in a new way. The 2026 Semi-Quincentennial Coin and Metal Program from the United States Mint.
It celebrates the founding ideals that have long shaped our coinage. Available one year only, this historic collection features new coin designs, limited edition releases, and reissues. Shop new official coins at usmint.gov forward slash semi-q. That's usmint.gov/slash S-E-M-I-Q. This July 4th, come celebrate at America's Block Party, hosted by America 250.
America's Block Party is a can't-miss 4th of July concert happening at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Experience music performances from major artists, patriotic tributes, and the kickoff to Giving Forth, helping to make July 4th the largest day of giving in American history. It's more than just fireworks. Learn more about this landmark celebration at America250.org. I turned off news altogether.
I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything. It's the rage bait. It feels like it's trying to divide people. If we got clear facts, maybe we could calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting.
Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News reporting for America. What's up y'all? Summer's got a different temper.
Everything's a little looser, brighter. One plan turns into another. You hear something, you stay a little longer.
Next thing you know, you're somewhere you didn't plan to be. It's those in between moments. That's where the ideas hit. conversations stretch out, little memories sneak up on you.
Sometimes it's just about what's in your hand. that color. That chill. a new tropical butterfly refresher from Starbucks. guava and passion fruit flavors with mango pineapple flavored pearls.
Yeah. That feels like summer before you even taste it. Funny how one small stop becomes the best part of the day. Start your summer rhythm. with Starbucks.
Try the new Tropical Butterfly Refresher from Starbucks. Hi, it's Karen in Georgia from My Favorite Murder. We cruised around LA in the Hyundai Ionic 5 and dove into the fascinating life of actress and inventor Hedy Lamar. Want the full story? Take a listen.
She starts dating Howard Hughes. And in fact, she helps him design a faster plane.
So she finds the fastest bird and the fastest fish and sketches out a drawing of what the two would look like as a plane. And that becomes the plane that we know today. And he calls her a genius. Check out our new episode, Spotlighting Groundbreaking Innovators like Hedi Lamar and Billie Jean King. Presented by the Hyundai Ionic 5.
Goodbye. Yeah. This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories. Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. and she continues to inspire generations with a pioneering spirit.
And her courage. Here to tell another story is our frequent contributor, Ashley Lubinsky. Take it away, Ashley. Only a short time ago, Amelia Earhart checked over every detail of her $80,000 flying laboratory in preparation for her round-the-world flight. This was to have been her greatest achievement, a skydash of 28,000 miles.
With her husband, George Palmer Putnam-on-Wright, she discussed the hazardous course which had been plotted for her by Fred Noonan, the navigator who embarked with Miss Earhart upon this great flight. a flight which was to have marked her retirement to aeronautical research. In the small town of Cody, Wyoming, it's got about 10,000 people, there is this giant 40-acre property. And on that property is a network of museums. And that, in and of itself, is huge.
There's a seven-acre roof. And one of the museums is the Buffalo Bill Museum. And what's fascinating is one of the last artifacts you may expect to see on display in a museum about Buffalo Bill. Is a coat owned not by one of his performers like Annie Oakley, but by a different type of pioneer. When you look at this coat, it's very ordinary.
It's brown leather, it has a yellowish collar, and a lot of creases revealing its age. But it's in this kind of ordinary coat that it reveals the life of someone extraordinary, Amelia Earhart. Amelia Earhart was born in Kansas in 1897, and she made her first plane ride in 1920. She took flying lessons and she purchased her first airplane that following year. In 1922, she flew that plane to 14,000 feet, setting a record for the highest altitude then flown by a female pilot.
And six years later, Earhart made history by becoming the first woman to successfully cross the Atlantic Ocean. I got down without any trouble and taxied to the front door. I was surprised. Farmer Cottage. After receiving a real Irish welcome, Bye.
took a Paramount plane to London. and they received a real English welcome. And in this instance, she was part of a crew that did include two male co-pilots. But in 1932, just five years after Charles Lindbergh did so, Earhart again made aviation history, becoming the first woman and only the second person to complete a solo transatlantic crossing, a feat for which Congress gave her the Distinguished Flying Cross. Roaring into the Oakland airport, she brings to a triumphant finish her 2,400-mile hop from Hawaii after 18 hours in the air.
10,000 cheer the end of the Aprico flight as the Lady Lindy slides into a perfect landing with two records. The first woman to fly the Pacific, the first person to fly it solo. Mm-hmm. Around 1934, she and her husband, who was a publisher named George Palmer Putnam, traveled to Wyoming. And there they visited a remote ranch, which is near this small town called Betitsi.
And now, there's not much in Metitsi right now, just a couple of bars and a chocolatier, but back then, even more remote. And this ranch they visited was owned by a man named Carl Dunroot. And the ranch that he had was the Double D Ranch, which is still around. And they spent several weeks with him fishing, riding, and camping.
Now, you might be asking yourself why did they go to Wyoming in this remote town? And that's because Putnam and Carl Dunroot had a long history of adventures together. Carl served as Putnam's hunting guide and outfitter in Yellowstone, and he even accompanied Putnam on a specimen collecting expedition to Greenland in 1926. When Carl Dunrood purchased his property, it had already included this former gold mining town of Kirwin. But the town was abandoned around 1907 following a really bad avalanche.
And so Dunrood's plan was to buy what remained of Kirwin so that he could build his dude ranch nine miles downriver. And that's what he did. And now today, you actually can still go visit the Double D Ranch, and there's about a half a dozen cabins where guests can stay and enjoy everything Wyoming has to offer. And they can also stay in the cabin where Amelia was staying back in the 1930s. What's interesting about Wyoming for someone like Amelia Earhart is that it offered something that aviation really could not.
It was a town where there were no reporters. There were no schedules. She wasn't expected to do anything. She was just able to participate in ranch life kind of in its finest.
So they fell in love with Wyoming so much that Earhart and her husband decided that they wanted to build a home there. And by 1936, so just short, you know, a couple years after her first trip, those plans were underway.
So Putnam communicated with Dunroot in a series of letters that exist and construction began in 1937. And it was only four logs high when Dunroot got a call from Putnam to stop building. And that's of course because In 1937, on July 2nd, that is when Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan vanished over the Pacific Ocean during her attempt to become the first woman to fly around the world. Then to a waiting world came news of disaster as the plane failed to reach Tiny Howland Island in mid-Pacific. A British freighter, the Coast Guard and the Navy sped to the search.
The battleship Colorado steaming out from Honolulu under forced draft. From California, the aircraft carrier Lexington, with 3,000 men and 72 planes aboard, races into the distant Pacific to join the greatest searching party in the history of aviation. Uh And today... That structure still exists, but only a few logs remain, and a lot of visitors they make the trek and they can kind of see there's a placard, they can see where Amelia was planning to live during the summers. But before she disappeared, she started sending her personal effects to Dunru to kind of hold on to them.
And he later recalled. Before Amelia left on her last flight, she sent many of her personal belongings to be stored at the Double D Ranch until she could enjoy them at her cabin. And one of these items was the leather flight jacket she had used in her flight across the Atlantic. It showed much wear because she also used it during the time she was roughing it at the ranch. This coat was one of several of her personal effects that she sent back to Wyoming, and Dunroot held on to all of those effects.
30 years later, he stopped by the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, which was called the Buffalo Bill Historical Center back there, because he wanted to make sure Amelia's legacy, especially her legacy in Wyoming, was preserved forever. And so he sat down with the director and he's like, I want to show you something. And when he showed it to the director, the director at the time said that he instantly knew what it was and that it was Earhart's flight jacket. And Dunrude said that he wanted to donate it to the center. What's great about the flight jacket and being able to tell Amelia's story in Wyoming is that it's probably at this point one of the few artifacts that don't kind of talk about her disappearance.
But really, it's evidence of a life that extended far beyond that. And that's what the jacket tells us. It's not how Amelia Earhart died, it's how she lived. And this jacket, which you can go see at the Buffalo Bell Museum, connects two worlds that rarely overlap in the way that we remember her. The cutting edge of aviation.
with the quiet of the American West. her large public persona. but also the private individual. And this woman who, while Chasing the Horizon, also was starting to plan a summer home in Wyoming.
Now today, the mystery of her disappearance still captures attention, but in Wyoming, this coat is something that doesn't require speculation. Her plane is gone. Her mystery remains, but the jacket and the foundation of what was meant to be their home tells the rest of the story. And a terrific job by the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler. And a special thanks, as always, to Ashley Lubinsky.
And she's the former co-host of Discovery Channel's Master of Arms. Co-founder of the University of Wyoming College of Law's Firearms Research Center. And she's also a frequent contributor here on Our American Stories. And what a story to tell, just when you think you've known everything about a person and always focused on the flight and the achievements. And my goodness, how else to know Amelia Earhart, but for those things.
She was the first woman to cross the Atlantic solo, and she was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by Congress as a result. And of course, we know about what happened in 1937, her disappearance, and her effort to take that trip around the world. But that daredevil, that wild lady, also had a private and personal life. And she found it, and she found peace, and she found joy. in Wyoming in the ranching life.
And that jacket in of all places, Buffalo Bills Museum. reminds us all as Ashley said. about not just how she died. but how she lived. The story of Amelia Earhart's Jacket.
Here. on our American stories. Liberty has never been just a word to we Americans. It has guided every one of our endeavors for the past 250 years, and now it takes form in a new way. The 2026 Semi-Quincentennial Coin and Metal Program from the United States Mint.
It celebrates the founding ideals that have long shaped our coinage. Available one year only, this historic collection features new coin designs, limited edition releases, and reissues. Shop new official coins at usmint.gov forward slash semi-q. That's usmint.gov/slash S-E-M-I-Q. This July 4th, come celebrate at America's Block Party, hosted by America 250.
America's Block Party is a can't-miss 4th of July concert happening at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Experience music performances from major artists, patriotic tributes, and the kickoff to Giving Forth, helping to make July 4th the largest day of giving in American history. It's more than just fireworks. Learn more about this landmark celebration at America250.org. I'm U.S.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. We all seem to be in a rush these days, but when you're behind the wheel, please do not speed.
So follow the speed limit. A few minutes saved by going faster is never worth the risk. Paid for by NHTSA. Hi, it's Karen in Georgia from My Favorite Murder. We cruised around LA in the Hyundai Ionic 5 and dove into the fascinating life of actress and inventor Hedy Lamar.
Want the full story? Take a listen. She starts dating Howard Hughes. And in fact, she helps him design a faster plane.
So she finds the fastest bird and the fastest fish and sketches out a drawing of what the two would look like as a plane. And that becomes the plane that we know today. And he calls her a genius. Check out our new episode, Spotlighting Groundbreaking Innovators like Hedi Lamar and Billie Jean King. Presented by the Hyundai Ionic 5.
Goodbye. Uh We learned how to love dogs from the dogs that loved us and waited for us to get home from school. They were the dogs that raised us. We returned the love with pedigree dog food. It was good then.
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