THE ADVENT OF HUMAN FLIGHT not only boosted our power of movement, but also enhanced our vision: We gained the ability to see the Earth from above. Before the Wrights' epochal breakthrough, there had been perhaps thousands of human flights, mostly in balloons. But it was the advent of the airplane-a whole new way of seeing and experiencing our planet with speed and control-that led to euphoric reactions across the world. Wilbur and Orville caused the eruption with their first public flights in the summer and early fall of 1908. In order to appreciate just how big the news was, it's important to remember the widespread skepticism of the Wrights' claims to have perfected a fully practical flying machine. They did not hide their machine during its development through 1905, but didn't exactly invite crowds either. On February 10, 1906, the New York Herald put it bluntly: "The Wrights have flown or they have not flown. They possess a machine or they do not possess one. They are in fact either fliers or liars."
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