That cold December day in 1903, a gusty north wind was blowing across the sand dunes of North Carolina's coast. The wind blew sand into the eyes of Wilbur and Orville Wright as they moved their awkward flying machine out of its shed at Kitty Hawk. Orville, a short, neat man with a heavy mustache, stretched himself flat on his stomach on the lower wing, between the two chain-driven propellers. The twelve-horsepower engine coughed, spat and began to clatter. With Wilbur running alongside holding one wing, the plane teetered down its wooden launching rail and rose unsteadily into the air....
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