The Wright Brothers Controversy

Once upon a time there were two brothers. Everyone said they were the same but in fact they were not. The reason people saw them as the same is their father willed it be so. The Bishop was adamant that to the world they must provide a United Front. Their father believed the world to be evil and he wanted his children to stay home and provide him with a home when he returned from his travels. So Wilbur Katherine and Orville did just that. They stayed home their entire adult lives  and kept the Bishop company and presented an equal united front to the world.

But Wilbur was different. He was smashed in the mouth with a hockey stick by a future mass murderer and went into a three year depression. By the end he wanted to fly. His brother had no real interest in flight and was happy to continue making bicycles. But Wilbur read everything and then contacted the Smithsonian and then the weather bureau to find out where the winds blew constantly. He then built his own kite flyer and flew outside of Dayton. He knew then that he was onto something and went down to Kitty Hawk North Carolina with a gilder he built. He went alone.

But Orville would join him and watch Wilbur fly his gliders for two years. By 1902 Orville tried the gliders and crashed  but to the world they were now the Wright Brothers and nothing would change this. Even when Wilbur presented his findings to engineers in Chicago and had a five hundred letter correspondence with Octave Chanute where he worked out the physics of flight. Orville was not part of any of this but a photo on Dec 17 1903 showed him flying and not Wilbur. From then on it was assumed they both invented the first plane. All the books said so...

Until now.

Wright Brothers Wrong Story

The Odd Couple of Wilbur and Orville Wright

Orville always made sure his socks matched. He made sure they had a bit of color. His mustache was trimmed perfectly. His hands were immaculate. His collar snapped, his eyes clear as water. He inspected his shoes carefully after they were shined. His derby was top of the line and fitted just so. Orville would work on greasy engines and the flyer in a smock and never smudge his starched white shirt. The world was at attention when Orville walked in the room. Unlike his brother.

Wilburs skin was rough from sun and wind burnt. His clothes tended to hang on his lanky frame. His eyes bore right through a person. Some said he had the gaze of a hawk and was always intent on the next thing. He did get dirty from working on the plane. He didn't bother to wash his hands and his nails would get grease stained. His shoes were smudged. His socks matched but they were black. He was more rugged than his brother.

When they returned from Kitty Hawk Orville would bleach his faced with lemon juice to reduce the tan. Within a week he was back to his normal pallor. Wilbur remained dark and tan and could have cared less. He was trying to figure out how to make a plane fly.

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Five Things You Didn't Know About the Wright Brothers

The first thing you don't know is that history was decided by a coin toss on December 14 1903 in Kitty Hawk. The Wright Brothers tossed a coin into the windswept air of Kill Devil Hills to decide who would fly first. Wilbur won the toss and on December 14 he went up and then down. The flight was not successful. That left Orville to fly on December 17 when the 1903 flyer would leave the earth for twelve seconds.

The Second thing is that Orville Wright had a girlfriend. Mabel Beck. History has told us that the Wright Brothers had no time for women with their pursuit of flying. Orville did. Mabel Beck was his secretary and she would become his secret lover. This would not be revealed until the 1990s when a man who saw the two in a lovers moment finally told a newspaper of what he saw in the 1930's. Wilbur had no girlfriend we know of.

The third thing is that both brothers dropped out of high school and lived at home with their father and sister their whole lives. They had no desire to leave the family home even as adults after they had become famous. Orville would finally buy a mansion after Wilbur died and the family would move there but neither brother ever would feel the urge to start a life apart from the family.

The fourth thing is Wilbur went to Kitty Hawk alone the first time and almost died. He had to cross Albemarle Sound to get to the Outer Banks. A storm hit while he was crossing and the sailboat took on water. He had to bail water to keep the boat afloat. His brother would later join him once Wilbur had set up camp.

The final thing is this. Wilbur Wright invented the airplane with help from his brother. This goes against the Wright Myth they did it together. But the truth is only Wilbur had the intellectual horsepower to crack the Gordian knot of human flight.

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Teddy Roosevelt Wanted to Charge the Germans in World War I

Teddy Roosevelt won the war with Spain. On this we can agree. He charged up San Juan hill and turned the tide of battle. It was the last time men on horseback would determine the outcome of a war involving the United States. But Roosevelt wasn't finished. Hew wanted to get his Rough Riders together again and turn the tide of World War I by charging the Germans. All he had to do was get permission from President Woodrow Wilson and he was ready to go overseas.

Roosevelt had become politically radioactive after losing the 1912 election for the Republicans. He had decided he wanted to run again and split the ticket. His hand picked successor William Howard Taft would have a been an easy win as Woodrow Wilson was an unknown quantity who had been President of Princeton and now the professorial Wilson was taking on a sitting President. Enter Roosevelt who decided he wanted to run again under his own party when he didn't get the nomination. The Bull Moose party Roosevelt formed was short lived and he handed the presidency to the Democrats.

So now he had to go to Wilson and plead to let him go commit suicide in France. World War I was vastly different than the war with Spain. Mustard gas, chlorine gas, tanks, flame throwers, machine guns. Millions of men died in a span of days. Roosevelt would not have gone five feet before he was cut down. But Teddy Roosevelt believed in action and he felt he could restore his political standing by winning the war for America. It was not to be. Woodrow Wilson said no. He did not want a dead president on his hands. Teddy Roosevelt never forgave him.

Forging A President

A Coin Toss Changed the History of Flight

We have seen the  iconic photo of Orville Wright flying in the plane in Kitty Hawk in 1903 and lifting off for 12 seconds and changing the history of modern flight forever. But what you don't know  is that history depended on which way a penny turned in the ocean wind three days before on Dec 14. That was when the Wright Brothers flipped a coin to see who would fly  first. Wilbur won and took off only to crash very quickly. Three days later Orville would fly and a box camera would record the image for all time.
 
And the world would make the assumption then that Orville was the father of flight as much as Wilbur. The fact that Wilbur would follow the 12 second flight with a 59 second flight would be hidden way in the annals of history. The first twelve seconds of flight had Orville as the pilot and historians would look up this as evidence he was as much a participant in cracking the code of flight as his brother. The coin toss would be mentioned then quickly forgotten.

But if the toss had gone the other way then Wilbur would have been the man to fly on Dec 17 1903 and he would have been the man whom history deemed to have broken the Rubicon of flight. History would have been altered forever. But as it was, the myth of the Wright Brothers began here.

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How the Wright Brothers 1903 Flyer was Nearly Destroyed in a Flood

In 1914 a monstrous flood hit Dayton Ohio. The streets became rivers with people being rescued with canoes or anything that would float. A levee just outside of town collapsed sending a torrent of water toward the town and the old Wright Cycle Shop. Behind the the shop was a shed and in that shed were the glass plates of the famous 1903 flight in Kitty Hawk North Carolina. Also in the shed were wooden crates. In those wooden crates was the 1903 Flyer itself.

The Wright Brothers had crated it up after the flight and thought nothing of putting the most famous airplane in the world in a storage shed behind their bicycle business. The shed could have been opened by anyone in the eleven years since Orville took to the air for twelve seconds on December 17 1903. Someone could have easily stolen the airplane. It was not even locked. But now it was in danger of being destroyed by the water rushing through the streets of Dayton.

Wilbur Wright had died in 1912. Orville was frantically trying to rescue his father who had been stranded in the family home. After putting his father in a canoe and getting him to safety he had to wait for the flood waters to recede. Hundreds died and the city of Dayton was devastated .Orville reached the shed the next day and opened the door. The glass plates had been submerged but the most famous photo of all taken on December 17 1903 of the First Twelve Seconds of flight had survived. The crates were water logged and he realized they had been under water from the layer of mud over the top.

When he finally opened the first crate he found the 1903 Flyer wet but undamaged. The mud had acted as an insulator and kept the water from pouring in. The most famous airplane in the world had survived and would eventually be given to the Smithsonian for safekeeping.

Wright Brothers Wrong Story