Long before jets streaked across skies and airports were built on every continent across the planet, the dream of flight was considered an impossibility by everyone except for two curious brothers from the heartland of America. Wilbur and Orville Wright were not trained scientists nor wealthy industrialists; they were self-taught inventors and tinkerers who transformed wonder into reality.
And so it was on a December morning in 1903 that the Wright brothers achieved the first powered flight at Kitty Hawk Beach in North Carolina, forever altering the course of human history. But how, exactly, did they get to that point? And what was the complicated legacy that they left behind?
Click through this gallery to find out.