The Wright Brothers — with Orville at the helm and Wilbur making a final wing adjustment — completed the first sustained flight of a heavier-than-air aircraft on a spit of land four miles south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
Orville Wright was born in Dayton, Ohio. His older brother, Wilbur, had been born in Millville, Indiana, on April 16, 1867.
Sir George Cayley, an English engineer, described the model for a modern airplane — a fixed-wing machine with lift, propulsion and control mechanisms.
Abbas ibn Firnas is said to have covered himself with feathers, attached wings to his body and (according to Algerian historian Ahmed Mohammed al-Maqqari) "flew a considerable distance."
Legend has it that Chinese Emperor Wang Mang ordered a soldier to strap two wings to his back. The soldier, covered in bird feathers, flew 100 meters.
