December 17, 1903, was a momentous date in the history of human transportation. On this day, Wright brothers — Oliver and Wilbur — made the first controlled, sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft.
We all know, Wright brothers weren’t the first to attempt human flight. For centuries curious adventurers had been trying to decode this puzzle — how to fly. They looked at nature and noticed that birds fly by flapping wings. So do insects and butterflies.
But mimicking nature can be dangerous — this was a painful lesson that was learned by many early pioneers of human flight. There’s a long list of men who plunged to their death when they jumped from towers wearing large artificial wings.
