Controversy about man’s first flight has swirled around the facts like a desert dust devil. Was Orville and Wilbur Wright’s flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903 the first manned flight of a heavier-than-air powered plane? Until 1942, the Smithsonian Institute denied it, claiming that Samuel Langley was the first—the same Langley who was the Smithsonian’s secretary at the time.

The title may have actually belonged to Gustav Weisskopf, a Bavarian immigrant who flew his powered airplane 800 meters (2,624 feet) in 1901. Although witnessed by reporters for several newspapers, including the New York Herald, it was not well-documented. Given the Smithsonian’s support of Langley, with the Wright brothers as deuteragonists, historians have largely ignored Weisskopf’s accomplishment.

The Wright brothers, typically lumped together as a single unit, were as different from each other as they were alike. Orville was more genial, with a head for business; Wilbur, with falcon-like eyes, was the genius behind the science.