debor008

"What we need is not the will to believe but the will to find out." - Bertrand Russell                     "Only a fool of a scientist would dismiss the evidence and reports                      in front of him and substitute his own beliefs in their place."                                                  - Paul Kurtz     The cover of Boys' Life magazine Sept., 1914  Historians and the public, who want to believe the Wrights were first to fly, have many excuses for  inconsistencies in witness's descriptions of` what happened at Kill Devil Hills, N.C.,  Dec.14-17, 1903--and indeed...

We are taught in our history books that the Wright Brothers were the first to fly on December 17, 1903. The narrations about that day usually begin dramatically, something like this: "On a cold, windy day near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the Wright brothers lifted off the sand in their small plane and became the first in the history of mankind to fly." Obviously there were manned flights before that in balloons, kites, and gliders. Man even made powered flights. So the definition of what the Wrights claimed that day was changed to be more precise: the Wrights were "the first to make a manned, powered, controlled, sustained flight in a heavier than air machine." But we're looking for truth in aviation history. How do we know the Wrights actually flew that day? Well, there were witnesses who were there, five of them. They were three life guards, John Daniels, Adam Etheridge, and Willie Dough, W.C.Brinkley, a farmer who was said to be beach combing, and Johnny Moor...