The Wright Brothers

larc

I am a bit bored, so I thought I would just put up some stuff for you consideration:

Did you know that:

1. Neither of the Wright Brothers got married?

2. When their sister got married, they shunned her for awhile?

3. Neither of them went to college, even though their sister got a college degree?

4. Before they invented the airplane, they invented the wind tunnel, and found out the the results from lift on glider wings was way off?

5. The Wright Brother's Mansion is not on the map, and can't be found unless you know a local resident. It is one mile from my house.

6. If they hadn't had to fight for their patent rights in court, they would have made even more technological advancements.

Tommorow, I will be back with some stories about Thomas Alva Edison. (God, I'm bored.)

Gopher

Keep it up, LARC! I enjoy biographies and little-known facts about famous people/places.

Looking forward to your T.A. Edison installment. I visited his winter home down in Ft. Myers, Florida. It is now a tourist attraction. Found out that Edison was more of a "refiner" than an "inventor". He helped make other inventions (such as the telephone) more practicable and useable.

He also authored two of my famous quotes, both which are on display at his winter home:

Genius is 2% inspiration and 98% perspiration.

I hope I have the percentages right. And then this one:

Good things come to those who hustle while they wait.

ballistic

Gopher - Did you know that 87% of statistics are simply made up on the spot?

Gopher

Ballistic,

Are you 100% sure?

obiwan

Dude,you are bored!

Englishman

Larc,

I saw a programme about the Wright brothers on Discovery Wings. It implied that the brothers were quite anti-social and shunned publicity.

Englishman.

ballistic

93.2% sure.

larc

yep Englishman,

That is true. They were very private people and devoted their whole lives to the airplane. That is why they never married. They had one mission in life, and that was their invention.

They were also very careful about their orginal research and design. After Kitty Hawk, they made design changes and improved the air plane, and flew it on Huffman prarrie (sp), outside of Dayton, Ohio. Reporters were not encouraged to show up, so only the locals knew about their work. They made the effort to paint the cables connecting the wings a grey color, so they would not show up on a photograph and give away a part of their design.

God, I love this stuff. I am no longer bored.

Double Edge

love history's little 'mysteries' larc. Nice post... Didn't the Wright Brothers have a successful bicycle business before the airplanes?

larc

yes Double Edge they did,

In high school they printed a neighborhood newspaper. They had one editorial to market their newspaper that basicaly said, if you don't buy our newspaper, you are really poor or really ignorant. One the contributors to their newspaper was Paul Lawrence Dunbar, their class mate in school and a great black poet.

The Wright Brothers

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