October 13, 2016

Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. was the eldest son of aviator Charles Lindbergh and was abducted from his family home on the evening of March 1, 1932. Lindbergh had become an international celebrity when he flew the first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927 just five years earlier. Newspaper writer H. L. Mencken called the kidnapping and subsequent trial "the biggest story since the Resurrection." Even Al Capone offered his help from prison. It had become the Crime of the Century. Two months later, the body of the 20-month-old toddler was discovered a short distance from the Lindbergh’s' home town in New Jersey. The crime spurred Congress to pass the Federal Kidnapping Act, commonly called the "Lindbergh Law," which made transporting a kidnapping victim across state lines a federal crime.