Lindbergh

Maybe, somewhere deep in the darkest of Maine's eastern woods and under 75 years of accumulated forest debris, lies all that is left of the Oiseau Blanc (White Bird) and all that is left of its two pilots, Charles Nungesser and Francois Coli. At least, that is one theory about what happened to one of the planes competing with Charles Lindbergh in 1927's great race across the Atlantic Ocean. Another is that Nungesser and Coli never made it as far as Maine - despite the airplane noises heard the afternoon of May 9 - and perished at sea. However they died, their failure left the way open for the young American to have his chance.

An anxious crowd standing in the rain on May 20, 1927 gave a sigh of relief as the tiny, mud-spattered aircraft bouncing down the rain-soaked runway at Roosevelt Field on Long Island finally lifted off, barely clearing telephone wires at the edge of the field. It was 7:52 a.m., and the Spirit of St. Louis, with 450 gallons of fuel in her tanks and with Charles A. Lindbergh at the throttle, quickly disappeared into the storm clouds. For Lindbergh, a 25-year-old airmail pilot and adventurer, the goal was to be the first aviator to successfully fly solo from New York to Paris and, in doing so, win the $25,000 Raymond Orteig prize for completing the journey across the Atlantic Ocean.

A spring rain that had fallen steadily through the day was followed by stiff winds that swayed through the tall trees surrounding the country estate of Charles A. Lindbergh Sr., and his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. To escape the constant glare of publicity that had surrounded Lindbergh since his historic 1927 flight from New York to Paris aboard the Spirit of St. Louis, and his subsequent marriage to Anne Morrow, daughter of Ambassador Dwight Morrow, the couple had decided to settle in a rural section of New Jersey.

A prosecutor today wouldn't dare inflame a jury by calling the accused a slimy worm, as David Wilentz did in the closing argument of Bruno Richard Hauptmann's 1935 trial for the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby. But can a modern prosecutor be compelling enough with a computerized slide show to convince a jury that Hauptmann was the killer despite decades of conjecture to the contrary? What about convince a theater audience that leaves a show sympathetic to Hauptmann full of questions about who really killed the famous aviator's baby?

Just about anything can be the subject of a musical - presidential assassins, Siamese twins, brain tumors. So a musical about the 1932 kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby isn't as bizarre as it might seem. Composer/librettist Kenneth Allan Vega's "Lindbergh Baby Kidnapped" (receiving its world premiere at the Theatre Project) has been stylishly and inventively staged by director Scott Susong, whose production incorporates film, puppetry and a trio of koken, the onstage assistants used in Japanese theater.

When you know the answers to these questions, go to http://www.4Kids.org/detectives/In 1903, what's the farthest any plane had flown?Which type of ball is used in Street Ball?Can you remember what two things make a droodle? (Go to http://www.exploratorium.edu/memory to find out.)SPIRIT OF ST. LOUISAt the young age of 25, Charles Lindbergh was the toast of the world after becoming the first person to fly across the Atlantic. At PBS' American Experience Web site dedicated to Lindbergh, you'll discover a fascinating world of aviation and adventure.

Not even a driving rain could dampen the spirits of the Baltimoreans who lined the streets of the city 69 years ago this week to catch a glimpse of "Lucky Lindy," the daring aviator whose solo flight in a Ryan monoplane electrified the world and made him one of the most adored celebrities of the Roaring Twenties.The 25-year-old Charles A. Lindbergh, who flew across the Atlantic in 33 1/2 hours in the Spirit of St. Louis, created a frenzy wherever he went, and his 22-hour visit to Baltimore was no exception.

It was called "the crime of the century." It had everything -- the presence of an American icon, a world-renowned celebrity. One of the country's most famous lawyers for the defense. A vast amount of physical evidence apparently implicating thedefendant, but also charges that some of it had been planted by overzealous detectives and accusations of evidence tampering. It was an expensive trial, with a sequestered jury whose ability to remain impartial under the glare of incredible publicity and press coverage was doubted.

Bruno Richard Hauptmann could hardly have foreseen how prophetic his close-to-final words would become when he uttered them on the night of April 3, 1936, shortly before being escorted to the electric chair in the New Jersey State Prison at Trenton.Hauptmann, in the oddly syntaxed and sometimes poetic way he had of speaking, told his minister, "They think when I die, the case will die. They think it will be like a book I closed. But the book, it will never close."More than a half century later, the book in the Lindbergh kidnapping case remains open.

A GIFT FOR LIFE: ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH. Dorothy Herrmann. Ticknor & Fields. 325 pages. $24.95. Anne Morrow Lindbergh was both an old-fashioned girl and a woman ahead of her time.She wrestled with the conflict between her instinct and training to be a devoted wife and mother and her need to write and forge her own identity. The daughter of a powerful banker, diplomat and U.S. senator and of a vivacious, self-confident mother, she married the internationally famous aviator Charles A. Lindbergh, the first man to fly across the Atlantic alone.