First Flight

On this day in 1903, self-taught engineers Wilbur and Orville Wright conducted the first sustained powered flights in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.

That afternoon they sent a telegram home to their father in Dayton, Ohio. The brief message read:
"Success four flights thursday morning all against twenty one mile wind started from level with engine power alone average speed through air thirty one miles longest 57 seconds inform Press home Christmas."

Their amazing achievement heralded a new epoch in history and transportation. Like the Wright brothers, artist Eddie Arning was self-taught. Made with crayons, his airplane with two figures suggests the Wright brothers' humble, early attempts at flight.

Pictured: Eddie Arning, 1898–1993, Airplane, about 1964–69, crayon on paper, 22 x 32 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr. and museum purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson.