[Flipside]

Originally posted by Raa


Especially when we watched Braveheart for 2 weeks, but we couldn't learn about 90% of real history.

You know, it scares me that a country should use sensation-led movies to educate it's young.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Corsair

Funny you should ask. I'm reading the WWI section in my US History textbook tonight. It's 25 pages and half of that is about the home front during the war. And as far as what it has to say... well, I'll quote.


It then goes on to say that the arrival of American men and material basically won the war because everyone else was tired of fighting. The end.

It's sort of true, but not because of the US Army; the Royal Navy  had blockaded Germany for years, the German troops (despite better trenches and thus living conditions) were starving - as were the civillians.  Of course, the blockade is what led to the unrestricted u-boat warfare that brought the US into the war..... so it's questionable whether US neutrality could/would have lasted anyways.

You could say the arrival of fresh troops 'broke the camels back' in terms of ending the war; at the same time it's equally argueable that, without US involvement, the war would have ended sooner rather than later anyways.

[Flipside]

Yes, the Americans had a far more definitive positive impact during WWII. Though I love that paragraph about France and the French, it does, to a small degree, show a wonderful level of naivety in that era.

[Swamp_Thing]

I didn´t read the entire thread, so excuse me if i repeat something.
The first heavier than air flight (assuming you don´t include ballons) was done bt the german Otto Lillienthal, who flew a plane reminiscent of Leonardo´s flying machine. It had no engine, and he flew from the top of a hill, for some 60 meters or so.

If you mean a flight with engine propulsion, then history tells us the Wright bros were first, allthough i´m not so sure. There were lots of people trying the same thing in those days, the Wright bros were only the first to get the public attention to it.

[Goober5000]

It depends on how you define "flight".

If it's simply rising on air, the Chinese flew people in kites in the 13th century.

If it's rising above the ground with no visible means of support, then the Montgolfier brothers did it in their balloon.

If it's gliding above the ground, several people did it in the 19th century.  Otto Lilienthal did it several times, though his glides were limited to around 30 seconds at most.  Sir George Cayley pulled one of his attendants in a "powered" glider pulled by a horse.

What the Wright brothers did, and what we commonly accept as the definition of aviation today, was the first powered controlled flight.

[karajorma]

The problem I have with the Wright brothers is that their flight was never replicated which to a scientific mind doesn't really make it the winner.

Furtermore they then abandoned the plane they had built and went on to use a catapault launching system.

[Goober5000]

On the contrary, they flew four times that day at Kitty Hawk.

Here's a good defense of the Wright Brothers.  Probably a better one than I could write:
http://www.100aviators.com/contro.html

[karajorma]

Yeah but only the last one was controlled flight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Brothers

I'm not saying that later attempts can't be considered but the 1903 one is worthless unless it can be replicated. As are all the other flights that couldn't be replicated.

The first flight was the one that could be repeated with the same plane within a reasonable period of time.

[Goober5000]

The 1903 flight was replicated... with the same plane.
http://www.wrightexperience.com/

Not the same physical plane, but the same design... reproduced in exacting detail.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Raa
Iccarus! Iccarus flew first! With wings of feathers, and bones of wax!

Heh, I'll vote for Icarus as well.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Goober5000
The 1903 flight was replicated... with the same plane.
http://www.wrightexperience.com/

Not the same physical plane, but the same design... reproduced in exacting detail.

Well if you're going to use that logic then Leonardo Da Vinci made the worlds first parachute jump cause someone recently made one of his designs and proved it worked

[Goober5000]

I'd happily say he invented the first parachute, but I wouldn't say he made the first parachute jump...  unless we discover evidence that he built it and tried it out.

Just like Charles Babbage designed the first mechanical computer (aside from simple stuff like the abacus) even though he never built it.  Whereas the Wright Brothers both designed and built the first airplane.

Addendum: Incidentally, the Wright Experience flyer wasn't built by following the Wright Brothers' original designs, since they seldom wrote them down.  Instead, people reverse-engineered the original plane and determined which components were original and which were replaced.  They pieced together scattered notes from diaries and re-used original components that survived the 100 years unscathed.  It was very much like an archeological expedition.

So in essence the reconstructed plane was a physical copy of the original plane, rather than a new plane built from specific plans and blueprints.