Wrights recalled at aviation's 100th
On a blustery day on a deserted beach near Nags Head on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, two brothers began humanity’s controlled adventure away from the surf

On a blustery day on a deserted beach near Nags Head on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, two brothers began humanity’s controlled adventure away from the surface of the Earth that continues to this day. How Orville and Wilbur Wright did it has become the stuff of legend, how a pair of eccentric, introverted, intensely religious sons of a bishop of the United Brethren Church set themselves up as successful bicycle designers, builders and mechanics, then used that income to finance and develop the world’s first practical heavier-than-air flying machine.

Seeking a place with steady winds and proximity to a passenger railway, the brothers chose a site hard by one of the mammoth dunes that rose above the flat sands of the Outer Banks, a 90-ft mound known locally as Kill Devil Hill.