There is something quintessentially American about Orville and Wilbur Wright's historic achievement at Kitty Hawk on December 17, 1903. They worked independently, as most American heroes have done. Their intense preoccupation with their airplane was fueled not by economic necessity -- income they already had, from their bicycle business -- but mostly from their imaginative determination to cross one of the last technological barriers to human flight- stability in the air.

The Chronology and Flight Log presented here were collected and published by the Library of Congress in 1971 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Orville Wright. The Wright brothers quest for powered flight spanned many years and took them many thousands of miles from their home in Dayton, Ohio. The Flight Log and Chronology have been assembled here from the Wright's own records and those of their contemporaries.

The Wright story did not end on December 17, 1903 with Wilbur's flight of 120 feet on the sands of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina; but grew as they took their invention to Europe. Their demonstrations of the 'Wright Flying Machine' brought their accomplishment to the World scene in a way that truly marked the beginning of a new era. The Chronology captures the excitement of these times in the words of the men and women who experienced them.