The Wright brothers made history on December 17, 1903, when Orville Wright manned the first heavier-than-air aircraft across Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. This plane was a realization of years of flight research, multiple glider designs, and plenty of failed attempts at flying. With this first successful flight, the Wright brothers paved the way for the transatlantic flights of Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart, and eventually for the invention of our modern commercial, military, and private aircrafts.
But what if Orville and Wilbur Wright had never designed their early airplanes? What if they never managed to fly at all?
Well, that was actually a possibility. Historians like David McCullough have traced the Wright Brothers’ fate back to an incident in their teenage years, during a game of ice hockey in the winter of 1885-1886. A neighborhood boy named Oliver Crook Haugh (who would, incidentally, grow up to become a notorious Midwest serial killer) hit Wilbur in the face with a hockey stick, knocking out most of his upper front teeth. It is unclear whether this hit was accidental or malicious, but it undoubtedly changed the course of Wilbur’s future.
Before his injury, Wilbur had plans to attend Yale and become a clergyman like his father, but the damage to his teeth and the resulting digestive and heart complications compelled him to remain home. Nevertheless, Wilbur studied. He was a voracious reader who gave himself a liberal arts education of sorts, setting the groundwork for serious flight research later in his life. It’s possible that if Wilbur had attended college as he intended, his life would have followed a drastically different path. He and his brother might never have invented the world’s first successful airplane.
