
A cold wind whipped across a beach in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. It was December 17, 1903. Orville Wright took off in a small airplane called the Wright Flyer. He had built it with his older brother Wilbur.
Orville’s flight lasted only 12 seconds, but it was historic. For the first time, a pilot had flown an engine-powered plane.
“No one had ever done anything like that,” says Beth Hudick of the Wright Brothers National Memorial. “It was absolutely a moment that changed history.”
The Wright brothers had set a course for