Ooops. Well, the first flight – which lasted about 30 seconds — took place in Kitty Hawk. But the heavy lifting – including building the plane and a much longer flight in 1904 at Huffman Prairie – was done in Dayton where the brothers lived most of their lives.
Wilbur was born in Millville, Ind., while Orville was born in Dayton.
“It’s clear that like the rest of the Republican candidates, Rubio too is full of hot air because that’s all that Kitty Hawk offered the Wright Brothers,” said Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, a Democrat..
Getting things wrong about the Wright Brothers is a real sore point in Dayton, which likes to call itself the birthplace of aviation. But North Carolina claims to be first in flight because the initial flight took place in Kitty Hawk.
And just to annoy people in Dayton even more, the Connecticut legislature has taken the position that the first flight was conducted not in 1903 by the Wright Brothers, but by one Gustave Whitehead two years earlier in Connecticut.
According to an article in the Aug. 18, 1901, edition of the Bridgeport Herald, Whitehead flew a machine at about 30 mph for about a half mile. And while there is no photograph that can be proved to show Whitehead flying, there are photographs of his plane — complete with propellers — on the ground.
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