Twelve Seconds in the Air

Two brothers named Wilbur and Orville Wright ran a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio, but they dreamed about flying.

They built a wooden airplane with cloth-covered wings and called it the Wright Flyer.

On a windy morning at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville lay down on the lower wing and started the little engine.

The Flyer lifted off the sand and flew for just 12 seconds — about 120 feet, shorter than a jumbo jet is today — but it really flew!

They took turns and flew three more times that day, and the world would never look up at the sky the same way again.