Orville and Wilbur Wright were poor boys, the sons of a clergyman, and apparently in no way distinguished from ordinary boys, except by a taste for mechanics. They had a little workshop, and one day in 1905, they brought out a strange looking machine from it, and announced that it was a flying-machine. The people of Dayton smiled skeptically, and assembled to witness the demonstration with the thought that there would probably soon be need for an ambulance. The gasoline motor with which the machine was equipped, was started, one of the brothers climbed aboard and grasped the levers, the other dropped a weight which started the machine down a long incline. For a moment, it slid along, then its great forward planes caught the air current and it soared gracefully up into the air. That was a great moment in human history, so great that the crowd looking on scarcely realized its import. They watched the machine with bated breath, and saw it steered around in a circle, showing that it could go against the wind as well as with it. For thirty-eight minutes it remained in the air, making a circular flight of over twenty-four miles. Then it was gently landed and the exhibition was over. Great crowds flocked to Dayton, after that, expecting to see further exhibitions, but they were disappointed. The machine had been taken back to the shop, and the young inventors announced that they were making some changes in it. No one was admitted to the shop, nor were any other flights made. One day the inventors also disappeared, and months later it was discovered that they had built themselves a little shop on a deserted stretch of the sandy North Carolina coast, and that they were carrying on their experiments there, secure from observation. Enterprising reporters tried to interview them and failed; but, ambushed afar off, they one day saw the great machine soaring proudly in a wide circle above the sands. A photographer even got a distant photograph of it. There could be no doubt that the Wright brothers had solved the problem of flight. But not for two years more were they ready for public exhibitions. Then, in 1908, they appeared at Fort Myer, Virginia, ready to take part in the contest set by the United States government. No one who was present on that first day will ever forget his sensations as the great winged creature rose gracefully from the ground and circled about in the air overhead. Again and again flights were made, sometimes with an extra passenger; great speed was attained and the machine was under perfect control. But an unfortunate accident put a stop to the trials, for one day a propellor-blade broke while the machine was in mid-air, and it struck the ground before it could be righted. The passenger, a member of the United States Signal Corps, was instantly killed and Orville Wright was seriously injured.