It would be impossible to underestimate the far-reaching effects of the invention of the heavier-than-air flying machine. Within the space of about twenty or thirty years the travel time between Europe and America went from three weeks to twenty hours. Almost overnight the world was reduced to a size in which no place on earth was safe from the invasion of our culture and civilization. The resulting exchange of ideas and mixing of cultures is in large part responsible for both the good and the bad of the twentieth century.

Pictured here is the machine used by the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in 1903