Picture of Wilbur and Orville Wright

     The brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright were born on Aug. 19, 1871 and April 16,1867 Orville in Dayton, Ohio and Wilbur in Millville, Indiana.  They both took high school courses but neither ever formally graduated.  In 1892 they opened a bike shop together.  The bike shop kept them going financially through their flight experimenting years.  

     Wilbur first became interested in mechanical airplanes because of the experimenting being done in Germany.  Orville and Wilbur built many kites and small gliders first, they then tested out three different gliders at Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills, and Outer Banks of North Carolina.  There first successful attempt with a powered plane was in 1903 at Kitty Hawk.  The brothers get a contract to manufacture their planes for the U.S. army in 1908.  Orville does the first public flight in France where he stayed for a year to do more public flights.  Wilbur dies of typhoid in 1912 and Orville dies of a heart attack in 1948. This is the story of two of America's greatest inventors.

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