Dec. 17 is the day to celebrate the Wright Brothers' first successful airplane flight. They flew near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on Dec. 17, 1903. Orville and Wilbur Wright were the first to make a successful flight in a heavier-than-air machine. While other inventors created flying machines, the Wright brothers were inspired to make a mechanically propelled aeroplane. The Wright brothers, like their predecessors, were inspired by the work of many inventors who came before them. Wilbur and Orville Wright had a fascination with flight. The brothers became inspired by a rubber band propelled helicopter created by the inventor, Alphonse Penaud. Wilbur and Orville began to focus on bicycles, including the Van Cleve and St. Clair. The Wright brothers were not the first to invent fixed wing planes, but they were the first to invent aircraft controls that made fixed-wing flight possible. In the years that followed, aviation continued to advance.

We celebrate the Wright brothers annually on December 17th on Wright Brothers Day!

Wright Brothers Day is a United States national observation.