Today’s ‘Google Doodle’ Features Texan Bessie Coleman
If you are flying around on Google.com today you'll notice the 'Google Doodle' is actually a Happy Birthday tribute to the first female to hold an international pilot's license.
Bessie Coleman would be 125 years old today. She was the first African-American, and Native-American female to be issued an international pilot's license. Bessie had to go all the way to France to get it.
Coleman was born in Atlanta, Texas in 1892. She was one of 13 children in her family. At the age of 23 she moved to Chicago and began to hear stories from Pilots returning from the war. In 1916, no flight school in America would admit, or issue, a license to an African American. Coleman enrolled in a French language class before traveling oversea's in 1920 to get her license to fly. She would go on to be a famous civilian-aviator preforming at airshows nationwide.
Bessie Coleman passed away in 1926 when the plane she was flying stalled, went into a nose dive, and ejected Coleman from the plane at nearly 2000 feet in the air. She died upon impact. The other person in the plane that day was Coleman's mechanic who died when the plane crashed in a burst of flames.
There is a public library in Chicago named after Coleman, as well as roads at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Oakland International Airport in Oakland, California, Tampa International Airport in Florida, and at Frankfurt International Airport.