Around the World in 100 Years
In 1924, two Douglas World Cruisers completed the first around-the-world flight.
What has changed on our blue planet in 100 years? Let’s have a look at some of their stops along the way to see the difference!
1924-2024 Virtual World Tour
Check out the interactive route map created by Bob Henderson below. Zoom in to the individual stops and click on the placemarks for historical photographs along the way! Click here for the daily flight log.
100-year Time-lapse
Here is a historical photograph showing three of the World Cruisers over New York City in 1924. We’ve added a current image from Google Earth for comparison. That’s quite a difference – imagine what it might look like in another 100 years!
Click here for additional time-lapse animations highlighting a century of change.
Water World
What does all of this have to do with water and the environment? The flight path took the world cruisers along the Alaskan coast line, and some of the historical photos show glaciers that have succumbed to the effects of 100 years of climate change. The planes were outfitted as seaplanes for much of the journey, so a lot of the footage has harbours, fjords, and other waterways as the backdrop, and the comparison photos show substantial water resources impacts.
Not all of the impacts have been negative, however. During a recent global water resources webinar, we highlighted some positive water quality impacts since 1924; in that webinar, we also made a crowdsourcing pitch for collecting current photographs at some of the stops to commemorate the 100-year anniversary. View the webinar recording below:
If you have any current photos taken anywhere near these stops, let us know by submitting the comment form below, and we’ll send some additional details about the available historical media materials in your area.
Additional Resources
Check out archived photos, contemporary newspaper articles, daily Instagram posts for each centennial stop, and 2024 celebratory event details at the First World Flight Centennial website:
In addition to constructing a working replica of the Seattle, one of the planes that was lost along the way on the original journey, Bob Dempster has compiled a daily chronicle of the 1924 flight along with a growing list of commemorative events scheduled in 2024. Bob will be posting periodic updates on the 100th anniversary of each stop.
Aviation author Julie Boatman will also be posting updates on her Douglas World Cruiser blog to commemorate each milestone in 2024.
Read a photographic journal of the trip by the Air Force History and Heritage Program:
Read extensive excerpts from historical records of the flight in the article Magellans of the Air:
The book “The First World Flight”, including dozens of photos, has been digitised and made publicly available here:
Check out hundreds of photographs of the journey at alamy.com:
Watch the five-part newsreel produced by the Engineering Division of the US Army in 1924:
There are heaps of additional photographs and newsreels from the stops along the way. If any of the historical photos or newsreels show your part of the planet, let us know how the original footage compares to the view from your current vantage. Considering the spread of our global webinar registration locations shown on the globe below, we’re hoping to get as many accurately geolocated photos as possible!
Be sure to send any comments, questions, or suggestions!
