History: Wright vs. Wrong

In 1900, the possibility of man taking flight was still a wonderful dream. And it wasn't too long before that dream became a reality. And now, over 100 years later, people still know who helped bring the world of powered flight to people worldwide: Gustave Whitehead.

Were you expecting someone else? Perhaps a pair of entrepreneurial brothers whose names have been taught to children for over a century? Well, according to new legislature that was just passed in Connecticut, those Wright boys need to move over and make way for the true pioneer of aviation.

According to information provided by historian John Brown, Whitehead made the first flight in 1901, two years before the Wright Brothers' famous flight over Kitty Hawk. Brown presented numerous pieces of evidence for this claim, including a photograph and a newspaper article from Bridgeport in which Whitehead talks about the feeling of flying.

Opponents fight back that the picture is unclear, the newspaper article reads more like a fictional story than an accurate account, there's no record of Whitehead trying to duplicate the effort, and the plane itself no longer exists. Otherwise, it seems like a pretty solid case.

Despite the naysayers, lawmakers in Connecticut officially passed a bill to recognize Powered Flight Day, citing Whitehead as the true pilot of the first powered flight. This suggests that history is not created by historical records, data, and verified reports (you know... facts). Instead, it's created by official decrees, the same ones that make such significant declarations as naming the ballroom polka the official state polka of Connecticut (which, seriously, was declared in the very same bill as Powered Flight Day).

This brings up one of the ultimate problems with learning about history. Because of incomplete or questionable evidence, a lot of facts aren't known for certain. However, everything is often presented to us as definitive truth. We are still taught that Christopher Columbus discovered America, despite the fact that people were already living here and Norse sailors (aka Vikings) established colonies here hundreds of years before Columbus was even born.

Sure, cases can be made that, even though there were natives here, Columbus still discovered a land that most Europeans didn't know existed. And other cases can be made against the Norse settlements, which didn't last and were gone by the time the new colonies were formed, paving the way for the current United States. But that's just the issue: things aren't always absolute, but we're taught them as if they are.

And now, Connecticut's legislature has taken it one step further. I understand how politics can often distort or hide facts to present a skewed version of history that puts things in a different perspective. But it takes an amazing amount of arrogance to take some circumstantial evidence and argue that history's long line of aviation experts are wrong... and then just make that the law.

Of course, there's still a chance that the general public will ignore the bill and continue to listen to people who actually know something about aviation. Still, even if the whole Gustave Whitehead thing never really takes off (see what I did there?), government is still responsible for some confusion in the world of flight.

On their respective license plates, North Carolina claims to be “First in Flight” while Ohio declares itself the “Birthplace of Aviation.” So what's going on there? North Carolina's claim is based on the 12-second test flight at Kitty Hawk that went a whopping 120 feet. Ohio, on the other hand, is merely where the Wright Brothers grew up, designed and built all of their aircraft, and recorded a 24-mile flight in the Flyer III, which is recognized as the first practical airplane by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Because of this, the U.S. Government officially gave Ohio its nickname, while North Carolina gets to hold on to its motto by a technicality... until Connecticut inevitably releases its new license plates reading “The Real First in Flight... Because We Said So.”