Harriet Quimby was only on this planet for 37 years, but she had a massive impact on the early era of aviation.

Harriet was born in 1875 as a pioneering American aviator, journalist, and film screenwriter. (You GO girl.) Being the first U.S. woman to earn her pilot’s license was not enough for Harriet; she needed to be the first woman to fly across the English Channel. (Again, GO girl.)

Harriet was a spitfire of activity and achievement. In an age when women were rarely in the limelight, Harriet wrote seven screenplays developed as silent film shorts. She even took a small role in one of them! Harriet moved to Manhattan in 1903 to work as a theater critic and published more than 250 articles over a career that spawned a decade.

But flying was her true love, and she regularly participated in air shows, earning up to $1,500 per show and often attracting 20,000 spectators. Alas, that was what did her in – she crashed in a show near Boston in 1912 and never saw her 38th birthday.

Harriet Quimby did a lot of living in her short life and spewed confidence wherever she went and whatever she did.