Charles Edward Kingsford Smith was born on 9 February 1897 at Riverview Terrace, Hamilton in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, the son of William Charles Smith and his wife Catherine Mary (née Kingsford, daughter of

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In 1915, he enlisted for duty in the 1st AIF (Australian Army) and served at Gallipoli. Initially, he performed duty as a motorcycle dispatch rider, before transferring to the Royal Flying Corps, earning his pilot's wings in 1917.
In August 1917, while

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In 1928, Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm arrived in the United States and began to search for an aircraft. Famed Australian polar explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins sold them a Fokker F.VII/3m monoplane, which they named the Southern Cross.
At 8:54 a.m. on 31 May

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On 31 March 1929, en route from Sydney to England, the Southern Cross with Kingsford Smith at the helm made an emergency landing on a mudflat near the mouth of the Glenelg River, in the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia. The Southern

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In partnership with Ulm, Kingsford Smith established Australian National Airwaysin 1929. The passenger, mail and freight service commenced

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After collecting his 'old bus', Southern Cross, from the Fokkeraircraft company in the Netherlands where it had been overhauled, in June 1930 he achieved an east–west crossing of the

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After making the first non-stop flight across Australia from Point Cook near Melbourne to Perthin Western Australia in August 1928, Kingsford

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