Welcome to Brain Stuff, a production of I-Hart Radio.

Hey, Brain Stuff, Lauren Volbaum here.

In 1910, sustained, safe, manned flight was still a tantalizing dream, just off our fingertips

notion that promised freedom and glory, and the kind of casting off of our earthly shackles

that had lured in Romantics for ages.

And so it was, in October of that year, that the entire world, or at least a good portion

of the Eastern United States, looked heavenward toward the latest fantastical attempt at

real, sustained flight.

All eyes were pointing toward New Jersey, not exactly heavenward granted, but you get

the idea, aware the airship America and its crew, aimed to be the first manned flight

to cross the Atlantic.

Before the article this episode is based on, how stuff works spoke with Thomas Paone,

a museum specialist at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

He said, in the early 1900s, there's this mystique about aviation.

It's futuristic, it's this incredible thing.

You have the first powered, heavier-than-air aircraft with the Wright brothers in 1903.

Aviation is thrilling, and that excitement is building.

Now I've been saying manned because flight in 1910 was still mostly the provenance of

men.

And, as it turned out with the airship America, one unruly tabbycat.

In 1910, there were those who thought that, if long-distance multi-passenger flight were

to become a reality, if those longing eyes on the ground in New Jersey would have a

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