1 July: Amy Johnson

Amy Johnson was the first female pilot to fly alone from England to Australia. She was born on this date in 1903. 10 things you might not know about her:

1. She was born in Hull, the eldest of three sisters. Her grandfather was a mayor of Hull.

2. She studied economics at the University of Sheffield and then got a job working for a solicitor in London. Soon after that, she discovered flying as a hobby.

3. Her first two planes were both called Jason. Her father helped her fundraise to buy her first, a second-hand Gipsy Moth. She named it Jason after her father’s fish business trademark. Johnson next obtained a de Havilland DH.80 Puss Moth G-AAZV which she named Jason II.

4. She was 26 years old when she became the first woman to fly solo to Australia. On 26 May 1930, she completed the 11,000 mile round-trip from Croydon to Darwin in 19 days.

5. Although she didn’t break the time record on this trip, she went on to set many other records including becoming the first pilot to fly from London to Moscow in a day, she set a record time for Britain to Japan with her co-pilot Jack Humphreys and a solo record for the flight between London and Cape Town.

6. She was a pioneer on the ground as well as in the air. She was the first British-trained woman ground engineer — for a while, she was the only woman in the world to hold that job title.

7. Amy married Scottish Aviator, Jim Mollison, in 1932. The story goes that he proposed to her during a flight together, at which point they had known each other for just eight hours. They divorced in 1938.

8. In September 1934, Johnson (under her married name of Mollison) became the youngest President of the Women's Engineering Society.

9. She modelled clothes for the designer Elsa Schiaparelli and created a travelling bag sold under her own name.

10. She died in 1941 when her plane crashed in the Thames Estuary. She was 37 years old. At the time, she was flying an Airspeed Oxford for the ATA from Prestwick via RAF Squires Gate to RAF Kidlington near Oxford, and went off course in adverse weather conditions. Reportedly out of fuel, she bailed out as her aircraft crashed into the Thames Estuary near Herne Bay. Her body was never found. There are, of course, rumours of a cover up. It has been suggested that her plane was mistaken for an enemy aircraft and shot down when she failed to give the correct identification code; and that an attempt by a nearby vessel to rescue her ended in disaster and she was lost under the boat.

Character Birthday

Dale Castle, founding member of the Greenroom Society, a band of villains associated with show business.

Dale's early life was difficult. His natural form is ugly and deformed; his deeply religious parents hid him away for many years, believing their son's deformity was a punishment from God. They feared they would be banned from the church if the "punishment" was known about by anyone else. Confined to the basement, the young Dale amused himself by listening to and composing music. Despite his appearance, his singing voice was beautiful.

At puberty, his power began to manifest. He was able to change his shape to that of a handsome young man. His parents now wanted to show him off, passing him off as a nephew from out of state and encouraging him to sing in church.

Angered by their hypocrisy, he ran away to seek his fortune in show business. Hearing about a TV reality talent show, he set out to become a contestant. Although he didn't win the contest, it did give him a platform from which he built a highly successful career. He created the Greenroom Society to bring together genetic variants in showbusiness, first of all to ensure they weren't discriminated against, but later became a means to maximise their success and wealth. It is a secret society with membership by invitation only. Genetic variants who refused to join were generally killed so that the secrets would never be revealed.