Orville Wright

He breathed his last on January 30, 1948 – he died of a heart attack. He was buried at the Wright family plot in Dayton, Ohio.

Both the US states of Ohio and North Carolina take credit for having been the place for Wright brother invention. While former was the birthplace for building the design for the flying machine, the latter served as the site where the first flight flew.

Orville Wright was one of the seven children born to Milton Wright and Susan Catherine Koener in Dayton, Ohio. While his father belonged to English and Dutch ancestry, his mother had a German and Swiss lineage.

As a child, young Orville was mischievous so much so that he was once expelled from elementary school due to the same.

In 1878, he was first exposed to a flying device. His father brought home a toy helicopter. He along with his brother Wilbur, played with the toy until it broke.

Interestingly, unlike other kids, the two instead of playing with newer toys went on to build a helicopter on their own. This was the first experience that ignited their lifelong interest in flying.

Completing elementary school, he enrolled himself at the high school. However, he dropped out of the same right after his junior year to start a printing business.

In 1889, along with the help of his brother, he designed and built his own printing press. Wilbur joined his brother as the two began a weekly newspaper, called the West Side News.

While he took on the role of a publisher, his brother served as the chief editor of the paper. Within a year, they converted the paper from being a weekly to a daily newspaper by the name, ‘The Evening Item’. However, the newspaper closed down after about four months.

He then focussed on commercial printing. His main client was Paul Laurence Dunbar, a famous African-American poet and writer and his friend. He even printed the weekly newspaper, Dayton Tattler.

No sooner than 1892 he changed his profession and opened a repair and sales shop instead, looking at the booming bicycle craze. With a little experience, they started manufacturing bicycles to tame their interest of flight.

Meanwhile, he did not let go off his interest in aviation and aeronautics and regularly updated himself with the latest world news in the field. The death of German aviator Otto Lilienthal reaffirmed his interest in aviation.

In 1930, he received the inaugural Daniel Guggenheim Medal established in 1928 by the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics.

In 1936, he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences.