On the news today, I was informed that an Ohio Representative (from Dayton, of course) introduced a resolution into the Ohio General Assembly stating that the Wright Brothers were the first men to achieve heavier-than-air flight. At first this seemed absurd, but this measure was apparently taken in response to a different resolution passed by the Connecticut Legislature, which stated that an individual by the name of Gustave Whitehead beat the Wright Brothers to the goal by two years, in 1901.
I wasn't aware there was any debate on the matter- is there actually any disagreement that the Wright Brothers were the first to achieve powered, heavier-than-air flight?
In the first chapter of the 2003 book "Flight", a coffee table book published by the Smithsonian Institution, they detail the twenty individuals or groups that built heavier than air machines that could get off the ground, before the Wright brothers. However, these contraptions could only make short hops and almost always crashed so hard, the machine was ruined. The Wright Brothers developed a heavier than air machine that they could control in flight. They could change direction and land the plane in a condition that allowed it to fly again. So, while the Wright brothers were certainly not the first to achieve heavier than air fight, they were the first to develop controlled heavier than air flight. That is a distinction that often gets glossed over.
FYI, curators from the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum did an AMA in this sub; please see here for their responses: