The Wright brothers' first airplane flight on Dec. 17, 1903, lasted only 12 seconds, and news of the achievement appeared in just four newspapers the next morning. However, the groundbreaking 120-foot (37-meter) flight in a fragile aircraft over Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, would go on to have a profound impact on the world.
Brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright did not invent flight, but their craftsmanship skills helped them form the early 20th-century equivalent of a startup. Their invention of the Flyer, which was the first crewed, powered, heavier-than-air and (to some degree) controlled-flight aircraft, brought people and ideas together like never before. In just a few decades, their ideas led to the creation of new aircraft in warfare, assisted with the spread of goods and people for globalization, and led to spaceflight — including putting the first people on the moon, in 1969.
