Beryl Markham was born in England in 1902 and raised in East Africa by her father who was a horse breeder, adventurer, and farmer. After apprenticing with her father as a trainer and breeder of race horses, she turned to aviation.
From 1931 to 1936 Ms. Markham carried mail, passengers, and supplies in her small plane to the remote corners of the Sudan, Tanganyika, Kenya, and Rhodesia. In September 1936 she became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west, taking off in England and crash landing in Nova Scotia twenty-one hours and twenty-five minutes later.