Connecticut governor OKs law erasing Wright Brothers from history

[B00Mer]

Connecticut governor OKs law erasing Wright Brothers from history

Connecticut now officially recognizes a local aviator as the first man who flew.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced on Wednesday that he signed into law a measure insisting that German-born aviator and Bridgeport resident Gustave Whitehead flew in 1901, two years before Wilbur and Orville Wright lifted off from Kitty Hawk, N.C.

Whitehead's supporters say they're correcting a historical mistake. Supporters of the Wright brothers, including the Smithsonian Institution that houses the brothers' historic plane, say Connecticut's Whitehead partisans are wrong.

A recent burst of interest in Whitehead followed a documentary by an Australian historian. Whitehead Research Committees in the United States and Germany also have stoked interest.

Jane's All the World's Aircraft, an industry publication, recently cited contemporary news accounts in concluding that Whitehead beat the brothers from Dayton, Ohio, into the air.

Read more: Connecticut governor OKs law erasing Wright Brothers from history | Fox News

 

[Cliffy]

And Edison didn't invent the light bulb either. He was just the first to patent it.

 

[Jonny_C]

I did some fairly extensive reading on this about a month back.

The case for Whitehead making the first powered flight is pretty conclusive...

Gustave-Whitehead.com, Gustav Weißkopf, © John Brown

In a similar vein, Canadian Reginald Fessenden may have been the inventor of radio...

Reginald Fessenden - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It seems that some of those who became household words as inventors were simply those who were faster to the patent office.