Article to diminish their achievement, First sustained powered flight.
“Article to diminish their achievement, First sustained powered flight.”
There seem to be a lot of efforts to diminish American technical achievements and exceptionalism. I think some people and countries have, ahem, “size” envy!
Another example of this phenomenon is the attack on Edison’s invention of the practical light bulb. Most “inventions” are further refinements of someone else’s pioneering idea. It is a long way from concept to concrete reality. (”Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration”) True, Edison did not invent the original concept, others had been trying to invent a usable bulb for decades. However, it was Edison that perfected and mass-produced the light bulb by using carbon filaments in a nearly perfect vacuum obtained by driving off occluded gases. He achieved what no one else had. Plus, he designed and built the generating stations and infrastructure to power the bulbs.
The Wrights took flying from a crackpot idea to something practical enough for the US military to buy. They did not invent the concept of motorized flight, but they perfected it sufficiently to become reality.