(upbeat music) - Welcome to ill-equipped history where two best friends tell you something super cool from history. (laughs) I had a wait for this one to finish y'all, I mean. (laughs) - I'm Morgan joined by my sleepy co-host. (laughs) - Less sleepy, more just shitty lungs. - Hello, guys. - My asthmatic co-host. - Asthmatic. - Struggling for life over here. (laughs) - Well Emily, despite your shitty lungs, how are you doing today? - I'm... - I'm... - I'm... - You are? - I'm an overachiever is what I am. - Yes. - And on top of baking, how many cookies did we say earlier? 650 to distribute for my job? I decided to make all the boxes hand-drawn cards at 11 o'clock last night. - They were very cute. - Thank you. I spent a lot of time on them more than I thought. (laughs) - I don't know what I was expecting. - You're damn overachiever. (laughs) - And I was like, you know what this needs? More work, more work. That little personalized touch. - It is, they work cute though. They were very cute. And I did have one lady eat like four of them, like while I was standing there. And she just kept eating them. And I'm like, well, that's a good sign. She's like shoveling in her mouth. (laughs) She's like, you should sell these. I'm like, I mean, yeah, I could. - Yeah, you haven't passed a little bit. - Yeah. - Yeah. - I don't have time anymore. Cookies take a long time. - Mm-hmm. - Yeah, so I got that, you know? Better than that, I'm surviving. - Yeah, how are you? - I am well, did wanna tell the listeners by this time this comes out. 'Cause I think this comes out on Thanksgiving. So happy Thanksgiving, everyone. - Oh my gosh, you're right. - Happy, oh shit, it's Thanksgiving. By the time this episode comes out, I'm going to be on a cruise ship heading to Turks and Caicos. - All right, just rub it in. It's fine. Emily was not pleased. (laughs) - Well, I even knew about the cruise beforehand that I just get bitter every time she mentions it. Just, why does it mama love me anymore? I wanna go. You just have to leave your family for Thanksgiving. - They won't mind, right? - No, it's fine. The kids won't be like, where's mom? Oh, she's gone. - She is in the Caribbean. - That's okay. We can have, okay, when we're rich and famous from this podcast, we could do a history cruise. Like, have you heard of those paranormal cruises where they have like a paranormal conference? We could do like a history conference and go on a cruise and like, that'd be super cool. Ooh, we could go to like a European, like, you know how they have like the river cruises? But we could go like, yeah, oh, we could hit up all the cool old spot. - Yeah. - Whoa. - Sign me up right now. (laughs) - We could do like live podcasts on the ship and then like-- - Yes. - Yeah, we have like a, like a, like a, like shows and stuff. - Yeah. - And like all of everyone who's on the cruise are fans and we all get to hang out and stuff. - And a bar. - And a bar. (laughs) - Okay, so if y'all like this idea, like and share, - Get us out there. - Yeah. - Yeah, spread the word. - We have a Patreon. (laughs) - If we have one million Patreon donors, we can have our own cruise. (laughs) - And we will invite you. You'll have to pay, but we will invite you. You can come and hang out with us. - Yes. - We're cool chicks. (laughs) - Like he said, that was not very convincing. (laughs) 'Cause we're really lame, but don't tell them that. (laughs) - We have an history podcast. - We have an history podcast. (laughs) Isn't that what all the popular kids are doing now? (laughs) - Ooh. (laughs) - Look at my chest. (laughs) (groans) - Oh my God. (laughs) - Anyway, shall we get started with our episodes today? - We probably ought to. - Our super cool, not lame, skit. We're super hip episode. (laughs) Super hip. (laughs) - Okay, we're so rad. We are the coolest. I am actually really excited for our episode today, which you'll all obviously know because of the title, but let's just get into it. Let's do it. Yeah. August 8th, 1908. A crowd of about 200 people has gathered outside of Lamont, France, awaiting the promise of quite the show. Two spectators who have been waiting for hours are growing restless. - Ugh, I am tired of waiting. It's been like four hours. Can we please go home? - No, not yet. He'll be here here soon. I know it. - You've been saying that all day. I am tired and this thing will probably blow up in all of our faces. - Oh, hush, you don't know that. - It did for the last guy. - Yeah, well, the last guy didn't have this. Look at that. I've never seen anything like it. The pair look towards the flyer, which has been waiting for its pilot for several hours. Finally, a man walks out and gives the flyer a system of checks. The man turns and faces the audience. - Gentlemen, I'm going to fly. - Wilbur Wright steps into his flyer, turns on the engine and engages the launching device. Which thrusts forward, the wind catches the wings and the flyer launches into the sky. Simultaneously, every person stands up and off as a man flies above the treeline and circles around the field. After one rotation, Wilbur Wright safely lands his flyer and comes to a stop. The audience is stunned into silence. - Ow, stop elbowing me. Did you see that? Did you see it? Can you believe it? - Yes, I saw. Still working on believing though. I never thought I'd see the day. I always thought it was impossible, but here, right before our eyes, a man flew like a bird. - Are you crying? - No. - A surge of reporters and military personnel rushed the pilot and his flying machine, desperately trying to get his first statement after the public display. We have Wilbur and his brother, Orville, to thank for catapulting humanity into a field of science and research that had previously only been dreamed about. After this day, no frontier went unexplored in either sky nor space. So, I'm literally like getting goosebumps, like just thinking about going over this episode. I'm so excited. So we're talking about the Wright brothers! (all screaming) We're gonna fly into this one. We are going to soar into this one, Emily, and probably crash a few times, 'cause, you know. - I mean, that's not what cool kids do, though. - Well, these two brothers were the coolest. - Way cooler than us. - Way cooler than us. - Way. - So, why do we even have the Wright brothers to talk about? Since probably humanity first started, we've been looking to the sky. We've been looking at birds and saying, "We want to do that, too." For thousands of years, men had been trying to come up with flying machines and devices and just trying to get into the sky. Kites were invented in China in the 400s. Leonardo da Vinci was drawing his own designs for a flying device in the 15th century. Like before, like the engine was a thing. He was like, "Flying device." That is so stressful. I don't know how to think about that, 'cause like, I know that in my soul. I know that, but every time it gets brought up, I'm like, how? - Well, that was a thing no one knew how. - Yeah. - That was the problem. - And you know they were trying them out. - Oh, yeah, absolutely. - Yeah, it wasn't good. It was never good. - In 1647, a man named Tito Livio Buratini created a model craft with four wings, but it was never able to hold a person's weight. But he like built a thing, like a prototype, but like, it took a long time for people to understand the mechanics of flight. - Well, I mean, it's very aerodynamic. I mean, if-- - I mean, literally-- - Break. - That's the science of it, is aerodynamics. - Yeah. - I mean. (both laughing) - You're right, now I think about it, yeah. (both laughing) And then in the 1600s, a little element called hydrogen was discovered. And this was the first lighter than air gas that was found. And people are like, let's put this inside something. Oh my God, it floats, now we have balloons. - Yeah. - So the first unmanned hot air balloon was flown in France in 1783 with airships very soon to follow after that. Like, Zeppelin's and Blimp's became all of their age in like the like 1800s and all that. We all know the Hindenburg disaster. - Yeah, did you know? I don't think I've ever seen a blimp in real life in my entire life. And one was over my town like a couple of weeks ago. I have no idea why, it was just-- - It wasn't the Goodyear blimp, was it? - No, 'cause I feel like it was just like white. It was just a plain old blimp. Like, what's you doing up there, buddy? - Interesting, yeah, I don't know. - I know, it was very weird. - 'Cause I've seen the Goodyear blimp. - But yeah, it's really cool to me that, I mean, what year are we talking about that the blimps came around? - 18, well Zeppelin's were a big thing in like the 1800s. - That is just wild to me that like that, they're still a thing, they're still doing that. - Yeah, just not filled with hydrogen. - No, no, no, no, no, they figured out something better. - It is helium, helium. And in 1869, Samuel Langley, who we'll talk about a little bit later, he launched the first heavier than aircraft machine on a sustained flight. Though it was unmanned and he was not able to successfully create a design that could hold someone's weight. But this is kind of like the precursor to our story. Like, people have been trying all this time, like to get us into the sky. But it will take two little brothers, not little, two brothers from Ohio to accomplish this dream for humanity, really. Yeah, like you ever like get a story sometimes and it's just such like a big story, you know? Like it's just like we would not be in our day and age without these two people. - Well, and it's like last week with Edison, how fast he propelled us into the future with the incandescent light bulb and with his phonograph. Like eventually somebody would have - Come up with something. - Made something. - Something, but the fact that he made it then propelled us into the future and the same here, the fact that they made this literally skyrocketed into the future. - Really? So I wanted to shout out two of my main sources before I get really into this 'cause I highly recommend you all check them out. So the first is I watched a little PBS documentary called The Right Stuff. It's from their American Experience Series that aired in 1996. My other probably main source I used, it's a book called The Right Brothers by Damon McCullough. This book was incredible. It was, so I listened to an audio book 'cause I rented it from Libby and I am definitely going to like buy this book so I can like read it from end to end. It was so fascinating. I got so much, I am not going to include all of the information in this book because the audio book was 10 hours. I'm not gonna be here for 10 hours to talk about. We got maybe an hour and a half or so. Yeah, but a lot of my research comes from David McCullough's book. It is so good. Highly, highly recommend it. It's got like really great reviews. Like almost every other like additional source that I looked up on the internet references this book as well. Okay. And what was it called again? The Right Brothers. Okay. Pretty simple. Yeah, yeah. Okay, and also just like one more little note. One thing that's really interesting about the story is that most of what we know about it came from letters that the brothers wrote back and forth to their father and their sister Catherine. Really? Yeah. When I was listening to the book, I said we don't know details, but what we do know came from a letter from Orville to his father or from Wilbur to his sister or et cetera, or like things that Catherine wrote in her diary or letters that Milton wrote to other people. But they actually didn't really do a lot of journaling themselves, which is just really crazy to think about. That sounds like something I would do because I never write anything down. I never, like I always, I never take pictures. I never document anything. And it just probably to them just wasn't something that they thought they needed. They were like, I'm just trying to make a flying machine. I'm not trying to make history or anything. So why would I write it down? Like, I'm busy. I got shit to do. Yeah. And they, what's interesting is that they had a camera and they took hundreds of pictures about it, but they never like wrote down like, and they like drew their plans of course, but they didn't go down like their, their research notes. And like their thought process or anything like that. Right. And then of course, like as their flying machine started taking off, we have accounts from like reporters and these accounts and people who met them, et cetera. Okay. So I just, I kind of wanted to get that out of the way to kind of preface everything that I'm about to talk about. So the right brothers. Wilmer and Orville Wright grew up in Dayton, Ohio. Their parents were Milton and Susan Wright and they all said three other siblings. Their oldest brother was Rushlin. I feel like it's how you say that. How do you spell it? It's R-E-U-C-H-L-I-N. That's how I would print it. I think it's Rushlin or Rushlin. And then they, the second brother was Lauren and then it was Wilber and then Orville and then Catherine was the youngest. And Catherine had four older brothers. She did. Bless her. Oh my God. I, I thought I was going to die in childhood with just the one older brother. Four? No, I would have never been able to do anything. Fortunately, Wilber and Orville and Catherine were all like extremely close. They were like each other's best friends. From what I saw like Rushlin and Lauren, they didn't really come up in the story at all. One of their, I don't, I'm not sure whose it is, but one of their daughters is actually in the documentary that I watched in '96. And she was probably about 80 or 90 herself in that documentary. Yeah. 'Cause I think she was born in probably like the 1900s or so. Yeah. But they, they weren't really as like integral to the story as Catherine was. Okay. Catherine was just really, we'll, we'll get into it. A little bit more about Milton and Susan. Their father was a bishop. He was really involved in the church and he stayed really involved with the church for his whole life. And then their mother was just a really cool lady. College educated. She was kind of the family tinkerer. She was mechanically minded. She fixed up anything around the house. And she's really where Orville and Wilber got there. Kind of sense for mechanics and fixing things and tinkering things. I think that's pretty cool. I thought this was also funny. The right parents, they, they were a little, not, how do I say this? They were not strict. They loved their children a lot. And they really encouraged their children to stay home from school sometimes. If they, like if their kids were like, I really wanna like read more about this thing I'm interested in. They're like, yeah, like you can stay home from school and like read this book. Like that's fine. Where was that when I was growing up? Come on. But they, they really encouraged their children to have like, like go after what they were curious about and what they wanted to learn about. Yeah. But of course they, you know, they did go to school. And also just to note, Susan and Milton did have two other children, Idas and Otas and Ida. They were twins but they died in infancy. Oh. So they were not really a part of the story either. So Wilbur was born in 1867. Like I said, he was a middle child. He was extremely intelligent. I mean, people like, like would say, you just looked at him and knew that he just had something going on in his brain. He was very self-confident. Of the two, he seemed to be a little bit more serious and stoic, but he was also very kind. He was friendly, just a little bit more reserved overall. His father said Wilbur was, quote, never rattled in thought or temper. So very like steadfast, like down-to-earth grounded. The kind of guy you wanna have as a friend, yeah. Right, which is really ironic because his head was always in to the sky. Yeah, literally in the clouds. Yeah, but as an individual, he was very grounded. He did well in school. He was extremely athletic and very handsome. He had a lot going for him. Yeah, so he wanted to go to Yale to become a minister or a teacher. I saw both. When he, unfortunately, when he was 18, he was playing a sport called Shinny. It's very similar to street hockey. And he caught a hockey stick to the face. Ow, it was an extremely severe injury. It knocked out his teeth and it like kind of broke his face a little bit. Yeah. He did recover. Like, actually, if you look at pictures, I don't even think you can see scarring. And I think his teeth were able to be fixed, but he continued to suffer from heart and digestive problems after the accident. Like, it really did a number on him. Oh, God, that sounds awful. Yeah, and not only did it affect his physical health, but also affected him mentally as well. He actually became extremely depressed afterwards. He let go of his ambition to go to college. He became more isolated and really kind of just like ashamed in general, which was really sad. And around the same time, their mother Susan became sick. She had tuberculosis. And she needed round-o-clock care. And since Wilbur was like, "Well, I'm not going to school and I'm already not gonna leave my house." Anyway, he became like her full-time caretaker for three years. Wow. Wilbur's niece, Ivanette, who I mentioned earlier, said that he would literally carry his mother up the stairs to her bed. What a sweet son. What a loving family. Oh my God. I know. Unfortunately, she died in 1889 when he was 22 years old. Oh, that's so young. It's so young. In the meantime, while he was caring for his mother and while she was resting, he was just around the house. The rights had a huge library and Milton could get any book for his children. So he actually started becoming very interested in reading books on aviation and birds. They had a ton of books on birds. So that was what he kind of occupied his time with. Okay. Next is Orville. He was born next in 1871. So they were about three years apart. He was happy, fun-loving, outgoing. He was also extremely intelligent. He seemed to be a little bit more carefree and mischievous than Wilbur. Yeah. Like, I mean, you know, you have to have that duo. One's like pretty grounded. One's a little more like, whoo, you know. Okay, I have a question, I have a question. You've got Orville and Wilbur. Is Orville on the left and Wilbur's on the right in the pictures. Orville has the mustache. Okay, they look how they sound. Like Wilbur looks like a grounded individual and Wilbur, sorry, Wilbur looks like a grounded individual and Orville just looks like he's there to have a good time. And I don't know how to describe that. There's just something in their eyes. It's in their eyes. Yeah, he kind of got like in trouble at school. He was a little bit of a class clown. Like, again, he was very smart, very intelligent. And I think he may have been a little bored while in school. So he was probably acting up and all that. He was witty, enthusiastic, very eager to problem solve. Like he actually never graduated high school. What? Yeah. It was something weird about like, he took like accelerated courses in college. But because he did that, he wasn't able to go to like a junior college whenever he did graduate. So he just stopped going to school together. He was just like, eh, okay, I'm done. Huh, Ivanette called him a dude. A dude. Especially in his dress. One thing I thought was funny and I think I may have deleted it. Oh no, it's a little bit later. I'll go and talk about it now. Orville, he had the mustache. Yeah, he always had that characteristic mustache. The book said that he was a little bit more exuberant in his style by wearing argyle socks. Oh, oh, the argyle. (laughing) He was crazy. Oh my God, not plain socks, argyle. I know. And I think like the family as a whole was they were not conservative like politically, but they were conservative and like, they were very modest, very, you know, like down at Earth humble people. Both Wilbur and Orville were pretty much regularly in like three-piece suits. Right. Constantly. Well, that was, that was a norm if you were at a minimum like middle class. You were wearing a suit every day. Yeah. It was just interesting 'cause even when they were like doing their experiments and like running around in the dirt and stuff, they're in their suits. (laughing) I just think it was funny. Orville did contract typhoid in 1896. He was really sick for a while. He drank polluted water. And so that became like a source of anxiety for the family for a long time. Like Milton was always like, whenever his kids were gonna drink water then, he was like, where'd you get that water? Is it okay? Is it safe? So he did, fortunately, Orville did recover from contracting typhoid. So after he finished school, Orville started publishing for a newspaper in Dayton. And with that job, he was able to get Wilbur out of the house and Wilbur signed on as an editor for the newspaper. And they did that for a while. They may have come up with their own like printing business. You know, they're just doing stuff. And then at the time, their sister, Catherine, had just finished college herself. And she became like the head of the household. And so then for just like a few years, like they were just like hanging out, living their best life, having a good time. - They were vibing. - They were vibing. They were vibing. They would bring people over and they would just entertain all the time. All three of them had no interest in getting married. They are just like, it's not for us. - Yeah. - Yeah, they were just chilling. - Yeah, cool. - And actually both brothers lived at home until like much later. They just didn't really see any need to leave. They were happy. Milton wasn't trying to get him out of the house. He was just like, as long as y'all are happy, I'm happy. He wasn't trying to push them off to get married or have kids or any of that stuff. - Wow. - Yeah, they were very close-knit family. The only thing is like, I think the older two brothers, the oldest one definitely was not as close. He kind of like faded off. And I think Lauren was a little bit more involved with the family, but not as much as Catherine. - Yeah, he was older, you know. Yeah. Milton acknowledged that Orville and Wilbur were basically like twins. They were inseparable. They went everywhere together. They did everything together. They worked together. They even had a joint bank account. - Oh my God. - They were each other's best friends. - That is crazy. - They had adorable. - It is. In some cases, it can be like, wow, that's a lie, it's like codependent, but they honestly like thrived so much. And they were not codependent 'cause they were able to be separated, but they just loved being around each other. They worked well together. - Yeah. - So in 1887, the safety bicycle was invented. And the safety bicycle is what we call the bicycle with wheels of the same size. 'Cause the original bicycle had that massive front wheel like the teeny tiny backwards. - Why? - Why did they do that? Why did they think, you know what? Let's make it dangerous to just get onto. Like, that's why it's called the safety bicycle 'cause it was a lot safer to ride around. Who drew it up and was like, yep, we're done. Yep, this is how it is. It's we're gonna have a seven foot tall bicycle. I just, I never saw the, like, I never understood it, but I don't either. But apparently someone saw the need to create a safer bicycle. So the safety bicycle, and it was all the rage. Everyone had to have a bicycle, including the brothers. And this is also just kind of to the personalities or of like racing the bikes, you like being a racist. - And in Wilbur just like visually rides throughout the neighborhood around Dayton. - I could see Orville like speeding off. And then Wilbur being like, you're gonna wreck. Like, you need to slow down, like being Mr. Safety. And then Orville's just like, wooo. I can see that exact same thing. So when Wilbur was 25 and Orville was 21, they were like, I mean, bicycles are pretty popular. Why don't we just open a bicycle shop ourselves? - Cash. - 'Cause I think they, like, they couldn't find, like, bike styles that they liked. So they're like, we're just going to build our own bikes in 1895. - Sure. - And I actually, I have a picture of one of their bikes. That's that first picture. That is a Wright Brothers bicycle. - That looks like about any bike you'd see nowadays. - Yeah. Yeah, it's not too different. (laughs) - Yeah, seriously. - And this is one of their, like, more high, like, top line bicycles. - Yeah. - That was a little bit more expensive. - So these were doing pretty well for themselves. With this bicycle business, they were happy for a while. About five years later, when Wilbur was 30, he was like, I think there's more. I want more. He, Wilbur didn't feel like he'd been far enough in life. He was a little bit disappointed with himself. He was like, I feel like by the age of 30, I would have done more. - Mm-hmm. - So he started getting more into his eyes were set to the skies. - He went back to the clouds. - He went back to the clouds. And literally my next section is called sites on the skies. So, like I mentioned like before, like as a prologue to everything, like people have been trying to figure out flight for a long time. I mentioned Samuel Langley. At the time of the story, he was a secretary of the Smithsonian, and a major name in the pursuit of Manfly. And actually, is it the FBI building that's called Langley after him? - I think so. - Maybe it's in Langley. Maybe, maybe CIA. It's like, despite the name change in 1910, the name Langley still lingers to describe the McLean neighborhood where CIA is located. - Okay. - Yeah. - So it's good. - Thank you for solving that for me. - You're welcome. - People were developing gliders. 'Cause again, they hadn't figured out anything. So they were just trying to get like, can we get like wings to fly for a certain amount of time? - No one was like getting the right pieces together. - Right. - A lot of times, they could result in fatal crashes. An example is a man of auto-Lillian Thal. He was a pioneer in aviation gliding. Like everyone who was interested in aviation at the time read Lillian Thal's works, his essays, his papers. He was like the forerunner in experimentation, in aviation and flying. And the Wright brothers themselves had been reading his books and his essays about flight. And they base a lot of their own prototypes off of his designs and stuff. Unfortunately, Lillian Thal died after falling 50 feet while gliding. And he crashed at first and broke his spine. - Like he fell out of the glider or the whole glider? - So he was in the glider. He like ran off the top of the hill. 'Cause that's kind of how you had to do it. You just kind of had to run off the top of the hill and see how far you could glide. And something, I'll go into a little bit later, but like his mechanics were not a sound. And he used his legs to shift his weight in the glider. And at one point he went to go bank for a turn. He shifted his weight and then the glider just went nose first and just crashed. - Oh, oh that's scary. - Yeah, it didn't stop people from trying, but it was a puzzle. It was, there were three problems really that were identified that needed to be solved that no one had really figured out yet. So the wings themselves had to not only lift the weight of the machine, the contraption they were built on, but also the weight of a person. - Right. - There had to be some kind of power supply to the device. And then you also had to have a way to control the device. 'Cause that was causing the deaths. Like you could get in the air, but like you just kind of stayed there. And if anything happened, you just plummeted. Controlling a winged device was really, really difficult. Like no one had really figured out the good mechanics for it. And people are building these extremely elaborate contraptions and just wild stuff. Two of the, like people are building such silly machines that people who were not really invested in aviation just thought like this was just the folly of man, you know? No one, we're never going to fly. You guys are just looking silly doing it. Like honestly some of it, like in the book, it describes some of the patents that were filed. - Yeah. - One guy literally just built a machine that looked like a duck. (laughing) Like ducks can fly. I could just build a duck. (laughing) One person literally sat in a chair with a pair of wings and an umbrella. No kind of way to propel himself. He just sat in a chair with wings attached to an an umbrella. And then one patent that was submitted was basically like a combustion powered fish. - Huh? - Yeah, like these, again, like. No one was really figuring it out. (laughing) It was a fishy situation for sure. You mean, they're all quack. (laughing) I was going to say it's ducking ludicrous. (laughing) Like, ergo, the problem of flight that no one really knows how to solve. - Right. - Also just a little side note, as I kind of mentioned before, the Wright brothers never went to like college. They neither of them had any post-secondary education. - They're just digging around. They built a bicycle shop and just like tinkering, and they read books. They were 100% self-taught. - That is incredible. - I know, and that's another, like this whole story gives me goosebumps. Wilbur, well, I think Wilbur for the most part was like the brain span operation. Like Orville obviously was like extremely involved, but he was kind of the one generating the ideas and an Orville was helping him execute the ideas. - So one idea, one conclusion that Wilbur came up with is that in order to have a good bounce while in flight, you can't just shift your weight. Again, that's how Lillian Thal died. Like he was just using his legs. So Wilbur was very, very intentional about studying birds and how they used their wings, especially like the tips of their wings. And he was like, that's one of the reasons Lillian Thal died is because he was just moving his weight. The wings weren't doing any of the work. - Right. - The wings need to manipulate. - Right. And that's a good observation 'cause apparently nobody else has been paying attention to that. - Right. Like people knew like, okay, this is how lift goes. And like I very basically know like with lifts, like the pressure on the bottom needs to be more than the pressure on top and you know, all that. That's about all I know as far as lift goes. But with like birds and stuff, he was like, they have like a lot of fine, like they're not just like straight T posing while flying. You know, they're altering the direction of their wings. There's like little alterations and stuff. So one of the things that he used to demonstrate this, he got a like a long rectangular cardboard box and he was twisting it. - Yeah. - Like from end to end. And he was like, this is going to be the frame for a flying device. This is going to be the mechanics of how we manipulate the wings. They're going to be independent. The outside of the wings are going to be independent from the center as far as like being able to adjust and maneuver. - It's just giving me the like, I know. A piece of cardboard. - I know. And he was like, this is my idea. And Orville was like, yeah. So they built a kite, like they started small. They literally like, will this even work? So they literally just built a kite that was like, I think like six feet across. - Right. - To test their idea of like the wing warping. - Well, you know what? That's so much safer than just eating yourself off a cliff. - Right. So they were very systematic, absolutely. Like Wilbur was like, okay, let's not like eat ourselves to our death. Like let's-- - I don't feel like dying because you twisted some cardboard. So maybe let's test it. - Let's test it. - So they built a box kite with the crossing wires that they can manipulate with handles and stuff to do this warping of the wings. - Right. - So they went to like a middle of the field in Dayton and there was like a couple boys that were like watching them and it worked. They're like, huh, okay. We may have something here. - Weird. - This works. So then they're like, okay, now let's build like a full-scale device. (laughing) The wings are those are sound. - So now let's eat ourselves off a cliff. - Yes. So they were like, okay, we're gonna build a prototype glider to really test full-scale wool this work. And in part of that, they were like, okay, we can't just like do in Dayton 'cause Dayton's flat as hell. We need hills. We need consistent wind speeds. They wanted Wilbur wanted it to be about 15 miles per hour. He was like, if it's about that, we won't like be flung to our deaths. Like it's, we'll have enough control, but we'll still get like the air speed we need. - Right. - We need open land, no trees, nothing to impale us or crash into. They wanted sand dunes. So like, if they did crash, they went like break their necks. - Right. - And they wanted privacy. They wanted the city done in secret. They didn't want a bunch of people like stealing off their ideas. - Right, right. This is, I mean, again, like last week, this is peak patent era. I mean, everybody was getting patents and patents. And if you didn't get it patent first, it's like what we didn't talk about was like Tesla and Edison's like patent feud they had going on. It was like a race every time you made something. So you had to do it in secret. And then, or somebody would just steal it and patent it before you did. - There was no laws protecting intellectual property at the time. - And people would, they would just steal. Like we even talked about it in a Charlie Chaplin when like people were literally just like copying his movies. - Yeah. - Like just like straight up literally copying his costumes and everything. - Yeah, yeah. So in 1900, Wilbur contacted a man named Octave Chinut who he is a very, he's not like in person as much, but he was a correspondent with Wilbur for a very long time. He was considered another expert in the aviation world. Wilbur wrote to him, he's like, here's my idea. Here's our idea for a glider. And Octave Chinut was like, you know, I really think you have something going for you. I really think that this could work for sure. So Wilbur was like, great. Okay, we got like one of the top minds in aviation that thinks our design is good. Let's find a place. So Wilbur reached out to the US weather bureau. And they told them the brothers to go to a place called Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. - They went all the way there with it? - Yeah. (laughs) - That's so far. - Yeah, it took weeks to get there. Plus they had to take like all their materials with them. And they basically like lived there whenever they went down to Kitty Hawk, they're like, all right, we're staying here for like a few months. And then they had like people run the bicycle shop for them while they were gone. Kitty Hawk was recommended because it had pretty, it was like close-ish to the ocean where they had consistent winds, very consistent weather. Nothing was gonna like come out of the blue. It was incredibly vast. And there were not a lot, there was like 50 houses in the entire area. Like very remote, not a lot of people there. And again, had good winds for testing aviation devices. So the brothers went down to Kitty Hawk with a kite that was about 18 feet across. And it had at that time $15 in materials, which now would be about $569 in materials today. That's so cheap. - I know, that's nothing. - And this is, it is wood and like fabric and like wire. Wow. So Wilbur went down first to like kind of find a place, get the materials going and Orville was gonna follow after. And I think it was like making sure that the person who was running the shop for them like was trained in everything. - Right. - So once the two brothers were in Kitty Hawk together, they started testing their device. They were again, making sure that the wings were maneuverable. And another thing that they did was in the front, they created a flap that could adjust height as an elevator, that could adjust the height of the glider as well. I don't know, I think I have a picture of what would eventually be their final. So, okay. So this picture here where they're on the beach running, and there's someone like in the glider. - Yeah. - That is their glider device. So you can kind of see there's like an elevator in the front that had a cable they can maneuver. There had to be two people to kind of like, kind of like throw the driver off the dune. And then they would use the wiring to like kind of maneuver the wings and the elevator and stuff. And while they're in Kitty Hawk, they had a lot of help from the Tate family. And I'm pretty sure the other man and that picture is Bill Tate. The brothers would like stay with the Tate family. The Tate family made sure they were fed. - That's sweet. - Yeah, they, and they were just like, these are some curious, curious fellas out here. We don't know if this idea will work, but we're just gonna help them out. - You know, what a bunch of weirdos. You need some help, buddy. - I'm not even exact. Like that is literally what like letters from like people who lived in Kitty Hawk were like, these are some foolish men, but they're really nice. And they've got a weird looking thing. And we're just gonna like watch and maybe help out if they need it. - You gotta love a small town coming together just because someone needs some help. - Yeah. So the brothers were down in Kitty Hawk for a while. They first had a kite and then they went to the glider. Wilbur's priority was making sure they could get the wings to work. He was like, I'm not even gonna think about putting an engine on it until we make sure the wings are gonna work. - First steps first, that's what people were not doing. They were trying, they were putting the cart before the horse. - Yeah. - Trying to put propellants on something that's not even gonna fly. - Right, exactly. And he was like, the motor is gonna be the easy part. We literally are just gonna build a motor and put it on the thing. The wings are the complicated part. And the figuring out the balance and the yaw and all that is going to be the tricky part. So over the course of the year and they built a larger prototype, they ended up having a leave. Kitty Hawk and it came back in 1901 for a second stay. This trip was awful. So they had a really big rain. And then after this rain, the mosquitoes. - Oh no. - The kino were horrible. Like Orville literally said that typhoid wasn't as bad as the mosquitoes. - Oh shit. - It was all, he was like, I would rather have typhoid fever again and almost die than be surrounded by these mosquitoes. - That's bad. - And they were like almost going to give up, but they persevered and then the mosquitoes went away and I'm like, okay, now we can like get back into it. So they have their larger glider and it was able to generate more lift and could even carry Wilbur's body weight briefly. But at one point like he had a, not a horrible crash, but he did lose control and he did crash. It did injure his head and face and it kind of broke the glider. So after this crash, they're like, okay, let's, let's go back to Dayton. We need a problem solved a little bit more. - What's crazy is that they still have not perfected their glider design yet. It was still just a prototype. They're still testing it. Octave Shenute was like, hey, I'm going to the Western Society of Engineers Conference in Chicago, Wilbur, do you want to come and like speak at this conference? - And Wilbur what? - What? What? Why? - You want me to what? - And he was even like, I haven't built a working machine yet and you want me to speak and he was like, yeah, like you got a pretty good idea. And so he came and like you went and things were fine. And Shenute even noted how they were basing their designs off Lillian Thal's works and designs and stuff. So back at the bike shop, Orville made a wind tunnel in the bike shop. What? - And I have a picture of it. - Super cash in like 1901. He had a wind tunnel. - How the fuck does that work? - I don't, I don't even know. I don't know. That's like the most I could find about it. I don't know how it worked. But they were testing like lift. They were seeing what shape of wing worked best with wind, what speed of wind, materials. Like they were doing test after test after test while also still running their bicycle shop. And another thing is that there is a guy named Charlie Taylor. I believe that's his name. He's in the picture. He was pretty important to the story as well. I think he helped with the wind tunnel. And he will eventually be a big piece in like a motorized device. So Wilbur came back and they continued to do their small scale testing. And they both had immaculate small scale data using the instruments. They basically made themselves to collect their data. Like they were just like, I built this thing to measure this thing. And here's our data to build a large scale device. So they are like, okay, we have a new glider design with all of our new data. So they went back in August of 1902. They went back to Kitty Hawk. They got much better results. They actually implemented a tail rudder. So they have the elevator in the front. They have wings for maneuverability. And then they have a tail rudder to help with direction. Okay. But they were still having some problems. Like it was just so close, but not what they were trying to get. And I think in the documentary, it said that they fought constantly. They were, they stayed in this like little hut for like months and they fought every day, all day constantly. They fought from the time they woke up to this time they went to bed just constantly. But this fighting was then like generating ideas and like bouncing them off one another and like really fine tuning their design. Yeah, it was a documentary. They were like, they screamed at each other. Like full on like nog out jub on bikes. One of the things that they figured out was that they were like instead of the rudder where the tail being affixed to the device itself, they were going to attach it to the wings. - Okay. - So like when the wings tilted, the tail would go a certain way. And this would increase in a stability of the device. - Okay. - And it worked. Ah! The pilot could finally control the flight of this glider. So Wilbur flew his glider from one hill to another over, it was like like 60 feet or more, maybe more. And that year that they recorded over a thousand flights in this glider. - Wow! - With two flights being over 600 feet. - Wow! - They did it! - I got like such goosebumps. But we're not over, it's not over yet. - So okay, they have a glider. They figured out the design, it works. Now to put a motor on it. So they needed a way to power and propel it. So they're back to Dayton. (laughs) And they, so again, they're continuing to run a bicycle shop. And now they're building a whole ass airplane in your bicycle shop. (laughs) 'Cause I think like the glider was still about 18 to 20 feet and this new plane was going to be like 30 to 40 feet across. - Right, well you've got to account for the, the weight of now a motor. - Right, and now they're wanting to get like long distance flights in too. - Right. - So Charlie Taylor who worked at the shop, who helped with that, he was a machinist. He actually cut out an engine block himself and designed the engine for the plane. - Wow. - And it was perfect. It was a perfect power. - Thanks Charlie. - Had the perfect power, was a perfect like size. And then the brothers realized, okay, so we have the wings, we have an elevator, we have a rudder, we have an engine. They also realized you need a propeller to like circulate the air. - Right. - To push the plane forward. - Right. - So I think the plane had two propellers. - Okay. - So this whole time Wilbur and Octave Chanu are continuing to write back and forth. They actually became really good friends and Wilbur was like telling him about like, these are the things that we're doing. Here's the designs we're coming up with. He didn't like send him a schematic or anything, but he was like, these are the things that we're thinking of while we're generating our designs. And Chanu wrote about it 'cause he lived in France or at least he was from France. And so he wrote about the brothers like designs and stuff and like their ideas in a French magazine and that kicked up a resurgence in France for aviation. 'Cause France is considered like the birthplace of aviation. That's where a lot of like the initial work went into it. - Yeah. - And it kind of died off a little bit. - It did because they weren't getting anywhere but then with the Wright brothers, like it rekindled again. And actually the brothers and just kind of like the country of France were kind of like in a battle to the finish until - Two dudes in Ohio and the country of France were in a battle of the planes. - It is not even just them. Like Samuel Langley is still trying to come up with his own designs. And in the book, it mentioned like Alexander Graham Bell was trying to get in on the aviation industry. - Of course he was. - I know. I didn't hear too much about him. Just like Shannon gets, I'm not gonna get into. Read the book if you want more details about it. There's already just too much. Like I said, so Langley was also working on his own airplane. He was given $50,000 by the army to come up with a flying device. And in 1903, he did make his own plane but it didn't work at all. It didn't work at all. The only thing that worked on it was the engine. - Oh, wow. - So apparently they were on like a houseboat or something in the Potomac River. Langley went to go fly his machine off the roof of the houseboat. But the plane had no structural integrity whatsoever and like fell like a stone into the Potomac. - Oh. This is a quote from, I don't remember from the book of the documentary, but someone watching said it was, it fell quote like a handful of mortar. - Just a break, just bloop. - Yeah. - I'm imagining the bloop like that. Going underwater sound. - Wink, wink. Yeah. (laughing) - So December 17th, 1902, the Wright brothers are ready with their design. So they go out to Kitty Hawk in December. Their design, it was modified with their glider that found to be worked. It just had a small engine, those two propellers. That morning they had 30 mile-per-hour winds. So, and they were like, these are really fast winds, maybe we should wait. - False end. - We're gonna do this, we're gonna do this. And they also took pictures. Like I said, they took pictures of everything. So, they got their plane onto the field. An oval got on the plane. He turned it on, and the plane started moving forward. - Ah! - It went 45 feet and then left the surface of the earth. It flew 120 feet in 12 seconds, and then gently touched back down. - They did it, they did it. - Oh, I got like the most goosebumps. And direct you to the next photo of this plane. This is the first, a picture of the first flight. That is Wilbur standing to the right, as Orville is laying down in the machine. And you can see it's not touching the ground at all. Oh my God, I know, it's like all the hairs on my armor, like standing straight up. It's so, in the documentary, he said the photographer was so excited, he almost forgot to take this picture. (laughing) - That'd be the guys we're gonna have to do it again. (laughing) - What you think did? - First flight. - They completed three more flights that day, with the longest flight being 852 feet in 57 seconds. - Okay, question, so this plane, were they purposefully keeping it low to the ground just in case like, okay, okay, good. - They did not want to get 100 feet in the air and then it fell and it crashed. - My intrusive thoughts would never allow me to do that. I'd be like, the first flight, the second one straight up. Let me go, it's fine. - And actually, and I bring it up later, but it's for that exact reason that the brothers never flew together. They never, whenever they like created like a passenger plane, they never flew together at the same time, because if one of them were to crash and die, the other one would still be alive. - I know. They love each other so much. - They do. Okay, so, oh my God, they're plane works. And oh my gosh, this is almost Christmas time, so they rush all the back to date for Christmas. - I would share Christmas. - So, Ivan Net was about seven at the time when her uncles came home from this flight and they were just like, they were buzzing. Like they were just like, oh my God, like it's all they talked about was the plane and them flying. So, when they were back in date and they continued to work on their machine, continued to perfect it. But now like we don't need to go back to Kitty Hawk anymore. We know like we don't need the sand dunes. We don't need to throw each other off gliders. We know that our plane can like propel itself off the ground. - Right. - So, they brought out like after Christmas and everything. They're like, hey, we're gonna bring in 100 reporters and you guys are gonna see us fly for the first time. 'Cause we were the first ones. We did it. - Yeah. - And that day, the weather was awful. - Oh, wow. - It was storming and rainy and cold and they could barely get off the ground. So, the reporters, like all 100 reporters, like these guys are crackpots. Like they have no idea what they're talking about and they left. And no one would know for like years. - That they actually did it. - Yeah. Except like the people who saw of course, like the people like Kitty Hawk. I think the time when they actually flew Charlie Taylor was with them and Charlie Taylor would go on to like stay with them right in the future. So, over the next two years, they built two new planes. And they were like literally just flying around. They'd go out to the fields and they were like, quote, flying figure eights by the summer of 1905. They're just like two years like, oh my God. And they had actually, 'cause the, again, the engine's pretty small so they don't have a lot of speed. So, they did develop like a launching device to kind of get them a little, like suddenly gust. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were getting up to 30 minute flights. - What? (laughing) - In 1905? - Uh-huh. - And then like flying around Dayton and then said then reporters finally saw like, "Hey, these guys are--" - Oh, yeah. - What's going on with that? So, now their brother's like, okay, we want to get a patent, of course, but we also want to sell our design. - Right. - I mean, why not try to make money off of it, you know? - Yeah. - Obviously. - You just weren't years on it. How about it? - Sell it. So, they didn't have a patent at the time, but they were in the works to getting one done, but they were being very, very secretive, 'cause like while they didn't have a patent, they didn't want anyone else to steal their designs, so they kept it very, very close to the chest. And Wilber was also writing to Shenuten, was like, I don't really know what we're gonna do. Like, we don't have a patent yet, but we want to sell, but the thing is, is that if we try to sell to like, like the war department, they're going to want like a passenger, and we haven't figured that out right. And like, you still had to have launch assistance too. Like, right. It wasn't super effective just by itself. So, they reached out to their congressmen to try to sell their design privately. They're like, tell us what you want us to make, and we'll do it. But also, we can't show you what we're building, 'cause it's top secret. And of course, everyone was like, no, no thank you. - You're crazy. - You're crazy. - We were crazy. - Yeah. - They also submitted their proposal to the US War Department. That was rejected. Then they tried to go to Europe, and they were literally asking for like $200,000 for a design that no one was allowed to see. And everyone was like-- - It's like a gamble. - I know. - Like I don't, I'm not. - Yeah, no one, no one was like jumping at the bay. Everyone was like, no, this is nonsense. We're not paying you for something. Like, you can't just go on and say, hey, I built a plane, give me $200,000, but I'm not showing you the plane, but I'll build you more. Like, that's insane. - We're all saying, no, it's the duck. I mean, they don't know. - Right, like they don't know. It could be the rocket powered fish. Like, no one knows. - Yeah. I'm still, I still can't get over the fish trying to be in the air. Like, why? - I don't know fish. - I don't know. - Okay. - So, you know, earlier I was talking about France was kind of developing their own system for flying. - Right. - So 1906, a man in Alberto Santos Dumont made a flight in Europe with his own design. - Okay. - And he, at the time, was considered the father of aviation. His design was not as efficient. It was a little bit sketchier. He couldn't fly it for very long, couldn't get more than like a few feet off the ground, but he did fly a flying device. - Okay. In 1906. - In 1906, it could only fly in a straight line. Like, he didn't have any of like the maneuver, it was like straight line, loaded the ground for like a few seconds, but it got off the ground and was self-propelled. - Okay. - So, Chinuit was like, "Hey, guys." Like, they're about to like kick your ass over here in Europe. Like, maybe you guys should like do something about this. - Pick it up, yeah. - So they finally, the Wright brothers finally got their patent in 1906, but they still wouldn't show anyone their design. They were still so secretive about it. - Yeah. - Which was not helping them at all. So, 1907 Wilbur finally went to Paris to sell his design and an Orville like joined Wilbur later, but they weren't able to convince the French government to buy their design, sight unseen, 'cause like, France was like, "We already have a plane, like we don't need yours." - Yeah. - So another man named Henri Farmand flew a whole kilometer with his own machine. Which again, wasn't great, but it was still a flying device. And this was the best that anyone had done besides the brothers. But again, no one knew what the brothers had done. - So, a man named Teddy Roosevelt. - Just a dude named Teddy Roosevelt. - Some guy. - He had finally like overheard, like there's these brothers. They say they've made a plane. It's, they've been trying to sell it to us for like three years, but we keep saying no. So finally, Teddy Roosevelt was like, "Okay, I'll make a deal to you guys." As this is in 1908, 'cause like, I will give you guys $25,000. If you show me your design. And then the French government was like, "Oh, well, Teddy Roosevelt's interest said, "We'll pay you more money to see your design." So now they have two places that are like, "We want to see your planes." So they split up. Wilbur went to France and Orville went to DC. - And they got double paid. - They did. So this is the scene from our skit. This is a story from the documentary and it was mentioned in the book as well. So a crowd of spectators had formed outside the small town of Lamont. The documentary said 60 people and then the book said like 200, so. - Somewhere in there. - A smaller crowd. - Yeah. - They waited hours for Wilbur to show up, but he was like, he was nervous and he was just like making sure the plane was good and making sure that he was prepared. He was on no one's time, but his own. - Yeah. - He was like, "I am not rushing this." So he got the machine ready when he finally showed up. He was like whistling a tune. He had his little like, he wore like a cap that wasn't like a European style. So people are like, "What's this funny man doing?" - Funny man. - He's fiddling about, he stands up. He gets on this plane and says, "Gentlemen, "I'm going to fly." He pushes the launcher and the plane just. (growling) Takes off into the air. Literally everyone silently just like stood up and like watched it as it flew over the trees around the field. - Incredible. It flew like one rotation and then Wilbur landed it. And everyone was literally speechless. Like everyone was like, "Yeah, this should happen." - Yeah. - It's so funny, Wilbur wrote to Orville and he said he quote, "Did a little something." (laughing) - Did a little something, a little something. - Hey, he wasn't doing figure eights and stuff. He was keeping it, you know, controlled. - Yes. - He wasn't showing off, it's Wilbur, it's not Orville. Orville was probably doing loopedies at this point. (laughing) - A little bit. So the French acknowledged, like the French government was like, "Yeah, you guys got us beat in the aviation department." (laughing) None of our designs had anything on y'all's plane. - Yeah. - 'Cause I mean, he was like above the treetops. He could do a whole circle and like, even then-- - Yeah, their planes could barely get off the ground. - Yeah. And like it only fly in a straight line 'cause no one, again, like if you shift your weight, that's dangerous. Like you have to have a way to shift the wings themselves. - Yeah. - So meanwhile, while Wilbur was in France, Orville was in DC at Fort Meyer. And he was just flight after flight after flight. He was going higher and farther every single time. Like breaking his own records over and over and over over again. - I told you, Orville's just out there to change. - He just did it. (laughing) - By the end, Orville had managed to fly over 70 minutes. - Wow. - I don't know why I put this afterwards, but like right after Wilbur demonstrated, like all over France manufacturing plants started popping up and they just started like, "Yep, let's build planes. Let's turn them out. Let's go." - Wow, this next section is called The Crash. This one has a pretty devastating story. So just prepare yourself. So while Orville was in DC at Fort Meyer, he, like I said, breaking record after record after record. And the War Department was like, "We need to make sure that you can have a passenger." So he did. He was able to take several passengers, have flights and stuff and was able to land. And actually President Roosevelt wanted to take a turn and Orville was like, "Absolutely not." With all the aspects. Which was most likely a good thing. So instead of President Roosevelt, a man named Thomas Selfridge, he was about 26 or 27 at the time. He was an Army Corps lieutenant. He got in with Orville and they were flying around, everything was fine. And then Orville heard two bangs. So he cut the motor and he was just gonna glide down. - Yeah. - However, they're about 120 feet in the air. And a piece of the propeller, what had happened? That he couldn't see 'cause it was behind him. A piece of one of the propellers broke. And this caused the prop to catch on one of the wires that controlled the wings and the rudder. And it got tangled. And then the plane nose dived. It crashed. Orville had a broken leg and several broken ribs, but he was conscious. Thomas Selfridge was unconscious. He had a fractured skull and he passed away later that night. - Oh. - He was the first person to be killed in an airplane crash. Like a powered airplane crash. - That's so sad. He was so young. - He was very young. And it was a very, very sad, sad event. The book said that the brothers had been in several crashes with like their gliders and stuff. 'Cause of course like there's just the nature of experimenting. And Wilbur noted when he had heard about it, he said not once in nine years of them doing this had anything broken off their designs. So it was really just seemed to be a fluke and Wilbur 100% blamed himself. Which was not fair 'cause he was a whole half a world away. - He wasn't even there, yeah. - He was in France. But he was like, Orville got caught up and like, impressing everyone to make sure everything's fine. If I was there, I would have made sure that the plane was fine and it wouldn't have happened. Yeah, which is really tragic. So Katherine, like as soon as she heard the news about the accident she left Dayton, I think she was teaching. She'd become a teacher and went down and nursed Orville back to health. Like she was constant like four years after this, she was by his side constantly making sure that he was okay, making sure that Orville could get healthy again. He actually, Orville lost an inch of height from his leg after it was broken. - Yeah, well, I guess that happens. - He had to walk with a cane for a while and I think he had a permanent limp afterwards. - Yeah. Well, I mean, if it was that bad then-- - It was really serious. - I mean, we talked about it in the bonus, medical things were not that great. - Not in the 1900s. - In the 1900s, yes. - No. - No. - So it did take Orville about four months to recover from his injuries, but once he was able to like walk again with assistance, he and Katherine went to France to join Wilbur. And I actually, I have a picture, if you scroll down. So I have like this, I have a few pictures that the very last, almost the very last one, they're in France and Katherine is like walking with her brothers and a bunch of like dignitaries and stuff and she ate it up. She loved traveling the world with her brothers. Like she was the center of attention, like constantly. Like the media was-- - Oh, she slammered with her. - Why? - She, like she literally got to go to like these all exclusive male clubs and engineering clubs because she was their sister. She taught herself French and like in the book it mentions that neither of the brothers even bothered to learn French and Milton was like, "What the hell? "You guys are in France and don't even bother "to learn a language, no weather Katherine's better "than you guys." (laughing) Like the three of them became so famous. They could not, they were constantly surrounded by fans and reporters and people and they continued to fly. Like any time they had a flight, like two to three thousand people were coming out to watch them fly. - Wow. - And Wilbur it was like, that's too much fuss. There's too many people here. And sometimes there'd be days if he didn't feel right, he just wouldn't fly at all. Which I understand because like he doesn't wanna crash, he doesn't, it wasn't because he was being a diva. - Yeah. - Because like it's too windy. I don't feel right about this or something. - Well, they do that now. I mean, if it's too windy, if a storm's coming, planes get, you know, they're landed all the time. They're grounded all the time because of the weather and it was good on him to be like, no, yeah, no. - Yeah, and he didn't care. Like if people were like, hey, we've been waiting for hours. He's like, sorry, come back tomorrow. Like I don't care. I'm not risking my life for you guys. - Yeah. - So the rights like Wilbur, Orville, and Catherine were like touring France. They went to France. They were touring Europe. They went to France and Germany and Italy. They were flying everywhere. Like Orville started flying again. Catherine went up a few times. - It was like, it was, they're just having a grand old time. And Milton was very, very proud of his sons, but he was like, don't let the fame get to your heads. You know, we're still humble Ohioans. Which they didn't. They never got big-headed. They never like let their fame get ahead of them. - Yeah. - They did thankfully fix a situation like the passenger stuff, of course. And the first motion picture was taken from the seat of an airplane in 1908. So a guy got like a video camera and he filmed taking off in 1908. - I wonder if you can find that. Like if it's online somewhere. - They did show it in the documentary. - Okay. - Like a maybe three second clip of it. It's hard to see because like the quality isn't very good. It's very dark, very like jumpy and grainy. But you can see like grass, like common towards them. And then like a little bit of lift is they like start like angling towards like trees and the horizon and stuff. Which is pretty cool. - That is so cool. - So they go back home and then they go off to do their own separate tours. Again, this time Willa Barrows in the U.S. he went to New York to fly in the Hudson River. Apparently he was supposed to fly. There was like a historic flight path he was going to take because like a hundred years before that it was like a ship took this route and then a hundred years before that it was. - It was an anniversary of something. But instead he ended up flying around the Statue of Liberty. Which is so iconic and there was a picture of it. - Oh, that's cool as shit. - I know. Just like a man in a plane around the Statue of Liberty. And another thing that he noticed when he did make like that iconic route is that he could not fly the altitude he wanted because the skyscrapers were impacting the wind. So he actually had to fly at a much slower altitude because the wind was differentiating because of the skyscrapers. And that was another like piece of data like that people who were building plants like okay so we need to get above the skyscrapers. So the wind doesn't bother us if we fly near a city. Meanwhile, Orville was in Germany and he flew to a height of over 930 feet. - What? - I'm sorry, I'm looking at these pictures of them just like sitting there chilling in this plane. They don't even look strapped the hell in. - No, there's no seat balance. - There's no seat balance there. - They're still just sitting there. - They're just sitting there. It's just a chair and you're 900 and how many feet? - 900, over 9, I think it was like 936 or something. - No, no. - I'll say Wilbur, 'cause he was really afraid of like crashing his plane and landing in the Hudson with no kind of like safety gear. He'd strapped a canoe under the plane. So it was deeply crashing out of the plane. (laughing) - Oh my God, you can kind of see it in the picture. - Mm, I love it. - So the peak of their frame was in 1909, they were doing all these tours but they were starting to get homesick. Like they, there was just so much fuss being made about them, they went to all these honors, these dinners, these celebrations, awards, and they were like, we just wanna go home. - Wilbur's tired, send Wilbur home. (laughing) - He needs his quiet time. - Yeah. - So they like, they went back to Dayton and they went back out but then when they were like, okay, we're going to Dayton like permanently now. Like we're not doing any more tours, we're going home. Dayton threw the biggest fucking parade in the history of the city. It was shut down for like a week. Oh my God, like fireworks and parades and like everything that you could do to celebrate. Like they did, it was a full spectacle and they continued to be honored for weeks after that. Wow, eventually they did move back home to Dayton, they started the right company and they started manufacturing their own planes. - Yeah. - Orville was in charge of the production side and Wilbur spent his time suing those who were infringing on their patents. (laughing) - They say so on brand this entire time. (laughing) - Like these are our designs. Like you can only like make them if you buy them from us. Like buy our designs, you can make them a hit. If not, then leave us alone. - That's important, someone's got to do it. - Absolutely. - I don't want to do it. - So in 1910, they were again, home in Dayton, Wilbur flew to a height of over 2,000 feet. - I'm gonna throw up. - No, not that thing. - No, they went from being scared to be 15 feet off the ground to 2,000. - That just shows like how much they trusted their design. - Yeah, I mean, they figured it out, damn it. - They did. They even took Milton up. They followed up for a ride and he managed to just like, he just was like speechless and he was just like a kid. He was like 80 at the time and it was just like, this is great. - Could you imagine the pride you would feel for your kids if they did something like that? - I cannot, Milton like was so proud. Like words don't do each other. - It makes your heart so happy. Like, if my kids did something like that in the future, I'd be like, those are my kids though. - Mm-hmm. - Oh yeah, he-- - Hell yeah. - Made sure everyone knew. Like once they were like out and like being, he was very proud of his kids and the brothers finally flew together for the first time. - So much heartfelt. - I know. Okay, you had a really big high, and I were about to go to really low low. - Don't you crash this plane. - No, they're not crashing. Well, the plane isn't crashing. - The story is though. - The story is, unfortunately this would be the last, except for like one ride in 1911, this would be the last time Wilbur would fly. 'Cause he, so much time was taken up with like going after patent infringements. He just didn't have time to fly anymore. Also, apparently the rights won every single lawsuit they filed or put against them. (laughs) - Damn. - So in 1911, the rights started construction on what would later be known as Hawthorne Manor. 'Cause the house they grew up in in Dayton was on Hawthorne Street. And it was gonna look-- - Oh. - Big mansion for the brothers and Catherine and Milton to live in. And so, Orville and Catherine oversaw construction. Wilbur was like so bound about things. And he only requested that he had his own bedroom and bathroom. - It's like just, he's so pragmatic. I love it. Just, I just need that. - In 1912, in May of 1912, while in Boston, Wilbur contracted typhoid. - No. - And he died three weeks later. - He never saw his bedroom and bathroom. - He never did. He was 45 years old. - No, that's so young. - It's so young. It's so tragic, it was so sudden. No one saw it coming. - Poor Wilbur. - I know. Orville lost his motivation for the business after Wilbur died, of course. - Yeah. - So in 1915, he sold a right company and their patents for $1 million. But today is like $31, over $31 million. - Wow. - You couldn't, I couldn't imagine making, like continuing to make those planes without someone like that, who was with you through everything. Like I probably would do the same thing. Like I don't wanna do it anymore. - Yeah. I mean, like that's your partner. You did everything with that person. And now they're gone. - Yeah. - I don't wanna do a damn thing anymore. - Yeah. It's so sad. Like, I think I was watching the documentary, I heard it in the book, 'cause I knew about the right brothers, but I didn't know like all these details and stuff. And I was like, oh my God. It's just so, it happens so suddenly, there's no way to prepare for it. And it's just, that's it. Wilbur died. And it's so sad. So in 1914, I thought I wrote it down, but yeah, I thought I wrote it down. In 1914, Hopper and Hill Manor was finished. So, Orville and Milton and Catherine all moved in. The three of them went on all kinds of adventures together. Apparently, Orville and Milton liked to like go really fast in an automobile on like country roads. - Yeah. - Like, and the cops were like, here they come. And like, would turn away so they didn't see him speeding down the road. And Milton really liked to go fast. He was like, go faster, Orville. They would like go to Canada. And like, apparently they went to like one island in Canada and Orville liked it so much. He bought like his own island in Canada. He was like, this is, and they like went there, it's like vacation and stuff. And just had a good old time. The three even marched in the date and suffragette movement together. 'Cause Catherine was like really big into the suffragette movement and Milton and Orville were like, yeah, women's right to vote. Milton died in 1917 at the age of 88. - Yeah. - So he loved a very long life. So, after Wilbur died, Orville took over for like going after people for copyright or patent infringements. He was tired at this point. Like he didn't wanna keep what going out and stuff. He kept getting requests to like come to this gala, come to this award and stuff. And he didn't want to do anything to taint Wilbur's name. So he kept going to all the things. Even though he didn't want to, he was just like, I'm so tired, I'm so done. He kept going. He got like almost a dozen honorary degrees from all these different universities from around the world. They had monuments and like memorials built in their honor. Like all kinds of stuff. And he kept flying for a while. Sometimes crashing. He was like building new prototypes, new designs and stuff, but none of them. He was like trying to build like a semi-aquatic plane that could like do like air and water. Not, didn't really take off. That's hard to do, of course. - Right. - And he had a go up against all these people that were saying, actually I was the first person to fly. It's of course those kinds of people. And I got actually flew in 1901 and here's my design and people were like, prove it. And they're like, oh, I can't, I can't. And they're like, well, show us now. Like show us how you fly this. And they're like, I can't. So again, like they won like every lawsuit that they were in. So they were very good at like documenting their work and stuff. And clearly, like it's flying a plane. Like if you were flying a plane before the Wright brothers, people would know about it. - Yeah, 'cause they'd be like, what is that in the sky? - You can't really hide that. - No. - Orville unfortunately had to stop flying permanently in 1918 because he was dealing with long-term effects after his crash at Fort Meier. - Yeah. - And it was just too painful. - Yeah. - This one's, I don't even know how to feel about this one. This one's kind of sad. So moving forward like several years, about a decade or so. So when Calhoun was 58 years old, she married one of her classmates. This enraged Orville 'cause none of them had gotten married. - Yeah. - And I think he thought it was just gonna be all of them. 'Cause now it's just him and Catherine. And so the fact, he felt a great sense of betrayal when Catherine got married. Even if she was almost 60 when she got married. He like straight up disowned her. - Aw. - And he was like, it's so sad. He was like, I'm never going to see her again. And it wasn't until she was dying of pneumonia. She like, he actually wasn't even going to go see her. But finally, like thankfully just in time, he changed his mind and saw her, she passed away in 1929. - Wow. - Orville, I think he still had his brothers and their families and stuff. But for the most part, Orville's all alone now. He never got married. He never had any children of his own. So it was just kind of him. And I think maybe Lauren and his kids moved into Hawthorne Manor. I'm not 100% sure. But Orville kept going. Plains refers using warfare in World War I. And Orville lived through World War II. - Wow. - So he went from like inventing planes to see aerial warfare. - Wow. - Yeah. - Shit, he saw the bombs being dropped. He saw what? - Yeah. - Holy shit, that is blowing my mind right now. I didn't realize he lived that long. - He saw rockets and jet propulsion, like fighter jets. The speed of sound was broken in 1947. And he lived through that. - Holy fuck. - What? - I'm having a hard time. - I know, it's crazy to think of that. This happened within a lifetime. - His own lifetime. - His own lifetime. - But he made that. And then he got to live to see, obviously it's like war isn't a pretty thing, but like it's incredible to see the technology difference between what he made. - Like from a glider and sand dunes. We had a wood and canvas. - From a kite with like cables on it. - Yeah. - Like what? - To jet propel like breaking the sound barrier. So he was actually asked like, what do you think about all of this? Of course. And he said like he didn't regret the invention. He didn't regret him and Wilbur inventing planes, but he did not condone the violence. He was like, that was never our intention. We actually wanted to bring about world peace. 'Cause we figured if everyone could fly, that would solve a lot of problems for man. It'll take us into new age, but. - They took it into, yeah. - War. And he actually, in the book, it describes, he had a metaphor for like, what's like fire. Like fire in itself is not deadly. It's not murderous, but it can be used for evil things. - Right. - Right. - Things as well. So Orville dedicated the rest of his life, making sure his and Wilbur's names were not forgotten in the history of aviation. He was like, people will remember our names. - Deservately so. - Absolutely. - Of course, yeah. - And like I said, he was getting really tired. He wanted, he was getting older. I mean, he was like 60 at 70 at the time. And he was getting tired, but he was still being invited out to gallows and events and stuff. He oversaw statues and memorials. He actually was there when a library was named after Catherine. And in January of 1948, at the age of 77 years old, Orville passed away after a heart attack. That whole, wow. And this is my last little, this like legit, almost made me cry. In July of 1969, when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, he left a piece of the fabric from the rights 1903 flyer behind as a tribute to them. - No, he did not. - He did. And there's a picture of it. I didn't know that. I know, isn't it like a cry? Like every time I thought about it for the past week, I'm just like, in 69 years, we went from a glider to being in space on the moon. And the picture says from Kitty Hawk to Tranquility Base. - It got, it gotcha, it gotcha. - And there, you can see it. There's like a little, little flap from the canvas. Wow. And it was also the last line in the book and I was not prepared for that. And so I was like, driving. And then I heard that and I was like, what? (laughing) Like I keep working my car. (laughing) Oh man. I just realized I made a mistake. I just put this mental stuff on my hands and then I just rubbed my eyes. Oh, I saw her on the cry. They're on fire. Oh no. I'll just blink through it. (laughing) My hands were hurting and I keep it here 'cause I'm cold and this is making cry so I was like. Oh, I'm sorry. (laughing) I'm just, I'm sorry your eyes are on fire. - Well, so you almost wrecked your car and I'm trying to burn my eyeballs out. So apparently the last line of this is trying to kill us. - It is. - Yeah. - So that's the story of the Wright brothers. - Oh my God, this was wonderful and amazing. This, thank you. - Thank you. It was so fun to research and again, I cannot recommend enough. Read the Wright brothers by David McCullough. It's such a good book. And like it has like the letters they wrote and they're all very funny. Like there are several times like listening to it. Like he would read something from, 'cause David McCullough narrates his own book and he would like read something. And I was like full on the laugh. Like that was really funny and it was like 1,800 speak. But like the Wright's were very sarcastic and they had a really good sense of humor and even like some of the jokes in the book itself and just really well researched. I didn't even cover like half of what the brothers did because they did so many things. I mean, we got to hit the high points in this podcast. I mean, we can't get to everything. - Right, exactly. So again, highly recommend it. And if you don't have time, I also recommend the Wright Stuff documentary from PBS. I think David McCullough is like the host of that show. - Okay. - And this was like, 'cause the book was written in 2015. So this was like 20 years, the documentary is like 20 years before he wrote the book. - Wow. - So, but highly recommend it. And thank you guys for listening. This was a very fun episode to research. - Yeah, this is great. You know, I knew a teeny tiny amount about the Wright brothers. I mean, I knew that they were the first to fly. Kitty Hawk sounded very familiar to me, but I don't feel like that was one of the things that I retained a lot of from like high school or whenever we learned about it. So this was awesome. Like there was so much more that went into it than I anticipated. - Me too. I actually, like I knew they invented flight. I knew they like did a lot of their stuff in Kitty Hawk. And that's about it. Like I actually was wondering like, is this going to have to be a two-parter? 'Cause there's so much stuff. And I was able to kind of like condense it down to again, like what I thought was really important. - Yeah. And we're still sitting at over an hour and a half. - No, I know. I know it's, it took like there's a lot of like, like there was a falling out between Wilbur and Octave Shunu that I didn't even talk about. Like there's a lot that happened. So again, look into it. I'm going to buy that book as soon as like I get a chance and I'm going to read it myself. I'm not just listening to it. So yeah, that's all I got for y'all. - That was awesome. Uh, socials? - Let's do socials. - Okay. If you like this, you can find us on Facebook, ill-equipped history podcast group and page. - Instagram? - @illiquipthistory. - TikTok. - @illiquipthistory. - Gmail? - Yes, illiquipthistory@gmail.com. - And Patreon. - Patreon.com/illiquipthistory. - You get stickers and bonus episodes. - Yes. - And eventually we'll do some other things too once we like get time and. - Yeah, that's, time is our enemy right now. - I know we need, I feel like we need a person on staff just to like help. - If we had money, I would love to hire so. - Yeah, yeah. - It's like what comes first, the chicken or the egg. Can we hire someone without Patreon? But can we do the stuff? - We can't, Patreon. Just subscribe y'all, help us some girls out. - I know, hello person we're hiring to help us out. Would you like $5 a month? - Would you? - Patreon. - Would you like to be paid in stickers? (laughing) - And cookies apparently. - Yeah, you can't experience. (laughing) - We would never. - So you guys know. - Absolutely not. - We would never. - Absolutely not. We are 100% for paying people what they're worth and what they're owed. - Absolutely, 100%. That's why we don't, well except for ourselves apparently 'cause we can't pay ourselves. But we would pay an employee, dammit. We'd pay them decently. (laughing) - All right. Well, I guess if your head's in the clouds you might as well go meet it up there. - Yeah, go to the clouds. Go ahead. - Go say hi. - Go to the clouds. - Make sure you start small when you're doing experiments. Start small scale. Take lots of your data. If you're trying to build a plane, do not get yourself off a cliff first. - Yeah, yeah, that's a good idea. - Yeah, yeah. - Do you like the right feathers and build a kite? - Yeah. - That was pretty smart. - And if your brothers become very popular because they made a really cool thing and you just wanna be like a lady doing shit, ride their coattails, 100% be Catherine. - Yeah, oh yeah. She was even more like more well like than they were. Like she was such a star and she did go to like make sure Orville was okay. Like there was that-- - Yeah, oh, yeah, she was part of it. - Oh my God, it's Catherine. We love her. She was like, "It's me, I'm Catherine." Hello, hi, I love you too. - And there's a lot more about her on the book as well. I just, I guess I couldn't go to it. - Yeah. - And she's great. - Yeah. - She seems like she could be like a whole other hour. - Oh yeah, just on Catherine, right, for sure. - Yeah. - Yeah. - All right, well we're gonna leave you guys here. Happy Thanksgiving, 'cause yeah, Thanksgiving. - Happy Thanksgiving. - Yeah. Oh yeah. - Okay, bye. - Bye, bye. (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
