Ever since 1939, August 19 has been celebrated as National Aviation Day, the legacy of a presidential proclamation first made by Franklin D. Roosevelt to celebrate the birth date of civil aviation pioneer Orville Wright. Together with his brother Wilbur, the Wrights are credited with inventing, building, and flying the world’s first successful airplane. Specifically, Orville Wright piloted the first controlled, sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air machine with the Wright Flyer on December 17, 1903, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Although not the first to build experimental aircraft, the Wright brothers were the first to invent aircraft controls which truly made fixed-wing powered flight possible. Orville was born in Dayton, Ohio, while his partner and older brother, Wilbur Wright, was born on a farm near Millville, Indiana. Today, National Aviation Day celebrates the history and development of the aviation.
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