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This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories,

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Up next, the story of a man who had over 200 songs written about him and was the first to fly across the Atlantic.

We're talking about Charles Limburg.

Here to tell the story is Kirk Higgins, the Senior Director of Content at the Bill

of Rights Institute.

You can check out their great curriculum on American history at mybri.org.

That's mybri.org. Let's get into the story. Take it away, Kirk.

It was the evening of May 19th, 1927. In 25-year-old aviator, Charles Limburg was being hounded by the New York press as he made his way to a Broadway play.

Limburg hoped that the play would relieve him of some stress, but there's a little chance of that.

He was preparing a historic attempt to be the first person to fly nonstop from New York to Paris,

but the stormy weather across the Northern Atlantic hadn't been cooperating lately.

Limburg never made it to his Broadway play.

Before it had even begun, he received one of the most significant meteorological reports

of the century.

A high-pressure system was going to clear out the storms.

The moment he'd been waiting for had come.

It was time for Charles Limburg to head back to his hotel

and prepare for one of the most courageous, dangerous, and historic flights ever.

Born in Detroit in 1902 and raised in the sleepy town of Little Falls, Minnesota, on the banks of the Mississippi River,

...