Wright Brothers, Wrong Story? Why Some Say Wilbur—Not Orville—Discovered Manned Flight

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

Society & Culture, History

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 21 March 2019

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How did two brothers who never left home, were high-school dropouts, and made a living as bicycle mechanics figure out the secret of manned flight? The story goes that Wilbur and Orville Wright were an inseparable duo that were equally responsible for developing the theory of aeronautics and translating it into the first workable airplane.

Today's guest William Hazelgrove argues that it was Wilbur Wright who designed the first successful airplane, not Orville. He shows that, while Orville's role was important, he generally followed his brother's lead and assisted with the mechanical details to make Wilbur's vision a reality.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the History Unplugged Podcast.
0:05.4	The unscripted show that celebrates unsung heroes, Mythbust's historical lies, and rediscoveres
0:11.9	the forgotten stories that changed our world.
0:15.5	I'm your host, Scott Rank.
0:23.5	The story from American history that probably gets mythologized more than any other story
0:27.3	definitely shows up in elementary and middle school history books is the story of the
0:31.5	Wright Brothers.
0:33.1	Here at U.S. you have two brothers who never left home.
0:36.4	They were high school dropouts.
0:37.6	They made a living as bicycle mechanics.
0:40.6	But somehow they figured out the secret of man flight at a time when the top physicists
0:44.8	around the world were trying to crack the same code.
0:47.8	Now the Wright Brothers had been treated in a lot of popular books as basically one organism.
0:53.2	They were both equally responsible for sorting out the technical problems of flight.
0:57.1	They were equally responsible for working out the complex physics.
1:00.7	And when you read a history book about them, they're basically treated as the same person.
1:05.1	There's very little to distinguish the two from one another.
1:08.4	But according to a new book, that's not exactly the case.
1:11.4	Today I'm speaking with William Hazel Grove, who's the author of the book Wright Brothers
1:15.9	Wrong Story.
1:17.2	How will we write saw the problem of man flight?
1:20.5	William argues that it was Wilbur, who designed the first successful airplane, not Orville.
	...

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