On May 22, 1919, a New York hotel owner named Raymond Orteig announced a prize.
The Orteig Prize, as it came to be known, was the whopping sum of $25,000 (about $340,000 in 2015). It was to be given to the first allied aviators who flew nonstop from New York to Paris or vice versa.
Six aviators died in the pursuit of that prize….
