For all of the 19th century, the relationship between Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom has been a troubled one.

The most zealous nationalists wanted full independence, but even moderate loyalists hoped to see the old Irish Parliament re-established.

Finally, after 26 years of elections and parliamentary debate, the United Kingdom is about

to grant Irish home rule.

Or is it?

Welcome to the history of the 20th century.

Music to the history of the 20th century. Episode 72.

England is no longer an island.

We return to the United Kingdom today, but first I want to take a brief excursion to France to pick up on a thread from episode 48 when we were looking at the early development of the airplane.

You'll recall that the Americans Orville and Wilbur Wright built the first successful flying machine

in 1903, then kept quiet about it and refused to demonstrate the machine for several years. Meanwhile,

in France, a great deal of effort was being put into aeronautical research. There were organizations

and journals and conferences created to share information, and there were multiple

experimenters and research organizations in France dedicated to flight.

It was all this aeronautical engineering infrastructure that had so many French convinced

that the first successful heavier than air flight would be achieved in France, as had the first

successful lighter than air flight, as we saw in episode 47.

It came as quite a shock to the French to hear about the rights, and shock turned into skepticism

when the rights refused to demonstrate their machine, or even so much as show a photograph of

it in flight. Some in France were ready to call them frauds. Meanwhile, experiments

continued in France and cash prizes were being offered to stimulate research. The first

successful heavier-than-air flight in Europe was made by Alberto Santos Dumont in 1906. You'll recall that he had earlier won a similar

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