Happy Birthday Orville Wright
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Whether you’ve been waiting for this day all year in true #AVgeek fashion or have just found out from Twitter this morning, today is National Aviation Day across the US. The national observation was established in 1939 by Franklin Roosevelt and honors Orville Wright (born August 19th, 1871) of the Wright Brothers.
To celebrate this day we wanted to share some little-known facts about the aviation pioneer. We also threw in a few pop-culture references for good measure.
1. He was a lifelong bachelor, and a good looking one at that.
Pop-culture reference: Buzzfeed included him under their Collection of Splendid Looking Young Chaps From The Days of Yore. Ladies, what do we think?
2. He dropped out of high school to start his own printing business.
Extra tid-bit: Orville bought out the co-founder of his printing business, Ed Sines, when Sines agreed to take popcorn as form of payment.
3. As children, Orville and his brother Wilbur loved to carve and print woodcuts.
Pop-culture reference: The original Grumpy Cat? A woodcut made by the Wright brothers depicting Grimalkin, the cat in the classic Henry Fielding book Tom Jones.
4. He won the coin toss that determined which brother would be the first to trial the Wright Flyer.
This first flight lasted for a whole 12 seconds and the brothers altered turns for the rest of day.
Pop-culture reference: This occurrence in history, where the brothers exchange turns flying the aircraft, made a special appearance in an episode of The Simpsons. In the episode, Bart wishes he had a brother and begins to dream about famous brothers of the past. In the dream Orville is flying the plane and Wilbur is down below chasing him on his bike exclaiming it’s his turn to fly the plane.
5. The first patent submitted by Orville and his brother was rejected.
6. For years he refused to donate the Wright Flyer to the Smithsonian Institution due to their claim that another aircraft was first to be airborne.
In 1948, the institute admitted to the misrepresentation and Orville agreed to donate The Wright Flyer once and for all.
How many of these facts did you know? If you already knew 2-3, we automatically categorize you in the “Serious AV Geek” category.