Help us find and improve next week's Connection Finder profiles: Famous Firsts [closed]

Question

August 25th marks the anniversary of the day Matthew Webb became the first man to swim the English Channel, so we're featuring him in the Connection Finder.

We're looking for profiles of others who were famous firsts to join him.

Here are a few of the people we're considering:

• Amelia Earhart, first woman to make a solo trans-Atlantic flight
• Roald Amundson, the first person to reach the North and South Poles
• Junko Tabei, first woman to reach the top of Mt. Everest

Can you help with these profiles, or expand their families? Adding relatives in any direction helps with connections. Every missing relative you add will make our connections to them closer.

Who else should we feature? Do they need a profile?

All profiles we feature need a good biography and a connection to the big tree. We also want each one to have an image, and the image needs to have proper source attribution explaining why it's in the public domain or why we have the right to display it.

We can't feature everyone mentioned (we only have room for eleven per week), but if we don't feature a profile you work on, we may use it sometime in the future. And, of course, all contributions help improve our shared tree.

We'll make a final decision on which ones to feature early next week.

Please reply here with what you're working on so that we don't duplicate our efforts. Thank you!

To help us plan future themes, see the 2021 Example Profile Plans post here.

Answer 1

Bert Hinkler - Australian, has pic, has bio, is Connected.  Has a double first -- he was the first person to fly solo from England to Australia, and the first person to fly solo across the Southern Atlantic Ocean. 

Comments

Also Smitty aka Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith - Australian.  Has pic, has bio, is Connected.  Another with multiple firsts (four) -- 

1. He made the first transpacific flight from the United States to Australia. 
2. He made the first non-stop crossing of the Australian mainland.
3. He made the first flights between Australia and New Zealand.  AND  
4. He made the first eastward Pacific crossing from Australia to the United States.

Answer 2

Clara Washington Burrill Bruce.  African-American.  Has bio, has pic, is Connected.  Has multiple firsts:

1. Was the first woman to be elected to chair the Boston University Law Review.
2. Was the first African-American woman in the United States to be elected editor-in-chief of any law review journal.
3. Was the first African-American woman lawyer whose son also studied law.

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(Didn't want her "lost" under my two Aussie nominations on my previous answer.)

Comments

Charles Richard Drew - African American, has bio, has pic, is Connected.  Was the first African American to earn a Doctor of Science in Medicine degree (1940).

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Blanche Kelso Bruce -- African American, has pic, has bio, is Connected.  Was the first Black American to serve a full term in the Senate.

Or his wife:

Josephine Beall Wilson - African American, has pic, has bio, is Connected.  Was the first Black teacher in the Cleveland public school system.

Answer 3

Only one that matters. Jeremy Clarkson, first one to drive to the north pole in a car!!!

Might need help with this. First man to fly faster than the speed of sound. = ?? Chuck Yeager ??

First circumnavigation of the globe = Ferdinand Magellan.

First Recorded European to land in America's = Christopher Columbus.

First European to sail the cape of good hope, and make it to India by sea. = Vasco De Gama.

First charter of civil rights, Magna Carta.

First bill written to allow religious freedom = Thomas Jefferson.

First reliable pendulem clock = Christian Huygens.

First reflecting telescope = Sir Isaac Newton.

First steam engine = Thomas Newcomen.

First television = John Logie Baird.

First printing press = Johannes Gutenberg

Haven't look any of them up, just suggestions for ideas.

Comments

Good selection, though I feel the need to point out that, even setting aside the other reasons why we probably shouldn't recognize him, Colombo was not the first recorded European to set foot in the Americas; Leif Eriksson was.

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it depends by what you mean recorded because the vikings landed in Canada, the first European born in North Americia is considered to be Snorri Thorfinnsson - Wikipedia

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He was also the first person to suffer from sleep apnea.

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Magellan did not circumnavigate the globe, contrary to popular belief.

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The only one that matters is Jeremy Clarkson!!!! But, they only made it the magnetic north pole. They were still a great distance off the actual north pole.

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Poland had religious freedom already in 16th century. Called "Warsaw Confederation", a document was signed in 1573 by the Polish National Assembly.

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth contained all kinds of religions, several forms of Christianity (Cahtolicism, Orhtodoxy and Protestantism), Judaism (the relative freedom compared to other European countries resulted in many Jews settling in the area) and even Islam (Tatars that have been allowed to settle down in the eastern regions, that are part of Poland today, not to mention having border with Ottoman Empire). Religious freedom was a de-facto policy, long before the document was signed.

Answer 4

William Francis Kemmler (May 9, 1860 - August 6, 1890) was an American peddler, alcoholic, and murderer, who, in 1890, became the first person in the world to be executed by electric chair. He was convicted of murdering Matilda "Tillie" Ziegler, his common-law wife, two years earlier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kemmler

Comments

and his executioner was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Davis_(executioner)

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Davis-54135

Davis also executed Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of President McKinley.

Answer 5

Here's a few that come to mind...

Neil Armstrong - First Man on the Moon

Capt. John Young - First Space Shuttle Commander

John L. Sullivan - First Heavyweight Boxing champion 

Bart Starr - First Super Bowl MVP

Janet Gaynor - First Best Actress Oscar Winner

Emil Jannings - First Best Actor Oscar Winner (not connected)

Sir Edmund Hillary - First person to scale Mt. Everest

John A. MacDonald - First Prime Minister of Canada

Margaret Thatcher - First Female British Prime Minister

Nellie Tayloe Ross - First Female American Governor

Rebecca Latimer Felton - First Female American Senator

Jeanette Rankin - First Female elected to U.S. Congress 

Frances Perkins - First Female U.S. Cabinet Member

Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell - First Female U.S. Doctor

John Jay - First Chief Justice of U.S. Supreme Court

Frederick Muhlenberg - First U.S. Speaker of the House

Comments

Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell - First Female U.S. Doctor

answered by David Randall 

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GREAT suggestion! 

Answer 6

Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell - First Female U.S. Doctor

answered by David Randall 

Answer 7

I understand the feature to be about explorers/adventurers, rather than all kinds of firsts?

Alexandra David-Néel was a French/Belgian explorer and spiritualist (and many other things) and is known for being the first Occidental woman to visit Lhasa in Tibet, in 1924, when it was forbidden to foreigners.

Otherwise I could suggest Louis Blériot as the first person to fly an aeroplane across the Channel. But he was already part of a feature one year ago. His profile is in good shape.

Answer 8

Juan Sebastian Elcano, first person to circumnavigate the globe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Sebasti%C3%A1n_Elcano

Answer 9

Roger Bannister, the first runner to run a mile under 4 minutes see Roger Gilbert Bannister CH CBE (1929-2018) | WikiTree FREE Family Tree

Answer 10

Harold Melville Clark, first aviator to deliver mail by air between the Hawaiian islands. Clark AFB in the Philippines was named after him.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Clark-38077

Answer 11

Here's a different sort of first--Wilkie Collins; since his novel The Moonstone is regarded as the first true detective novel (and quite adventurous!). His connections could use some work, I suppose...

Answer 12

I found a broken limb in Amelia Earhart's tree, a Sarah Harris Otis, with some questionable dates and sourcing.  So I found her parents and added them.  Amelia had long roots in early Rhode Island, as well as Salem and Marshfield MA.

As for other possible firsts, the Wright Bros, George Washington, or maybe the first president of the US under the Articles of Confederation, John Hanson, 1715 - 1783, who, as far as I can tell, is not even in our database.

Comments

John Hanson - https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Hanson-1872

Answer 13

Thomas Selfridge, the first person to die in a powered airplane accident. Selfridge AFB (now ANG) in Michigan is named after him.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Selfridge-212