On May 22, 1919, the New York hotel owner Raymond Orteig offered $25,000 to the first aviator from an Allied country to fly nonstop between New York and Paris.
Several crews tried and failed. Noel Davis and Stanton Wooster were killed in a test crash in April 1927. Charles Nungesser and François Coli disappeared over the Atlantic in May 1927. Charles Lindbergh landed in Paris on May 21, 1927, and received the prize on June 16, 1927.