Was the Airplane an American Invention?
Susan Kelly Archer

Abstract
The airplane was not essentially an American invention; it was a World invention. One cannot attribute the invention of the airplane solely to the Wright brothers. The Wright brothers were voracious readers of a variety of articles written by or about other great names in aviation development, among them Otto Lillienthal, Octave Chanute, Sir George Cayley, and John Stringfellow. Lillienthal, Cayley, and Stringfellow were European and Chanute was born in France. Cayley’s work in aeronautics, Lillienthal’s gliders, Stringfellow’s engine, and Chanute’s coordination of aviation development literature provided a solid foundation for the historic moment in December 1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

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