The Orteig Prize was a $25,000 reward offered in 1919 by hotel owner Raymond Orteig to the first person to fly non-stop from New York City to Paris.
Hubert Julian, René Fonck, and other aviators made unsuccessful attempts at transatlantic flights before Charles Lindbergh won the prize in 1927 in his airplane Spirit of St. Louis. Lindbergh chose to fly solo, although this was not a requirement of the prize and required him to be at the controls for more than 30 hours.
Lindbergh was both the first solo pilot and the first American to cross the Atlantic nonstop in an airplane (rather than an airship), and he promptly became a national hero.
His flight was followed by the "Lindbergh boom", as public interest in air travel bloomed and aviation stocks skyrocketed.
The Orteig Prize inspired the $10 million Ansari X Prize for repeated suborbital commercial flights.
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