Wilbur Wright
1867–1912 · American · Gilded Age / Progressive Era
Known for: Co-invented the airplane, achieving the first powered, controlled heavier-than-air flight
Wilbur Wright, with his brother Orville, achieved humanity's ancient dream of flight on December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Wilbur was the intellectual leader—a studious, self-taught engineer who solved the problem of controlled flight through wing-warping. Their first flight lasted 12 seconds and covered 120 feet.
He was meticulous about patents and spent years in court defending their invention. He never married, devoting his life entirely to flight. He died young at 45 from typhoid fever, just nine years after Kitty Hawk.
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