Long before Wilbur and Orville Wright made their historic flight in 1903, man had dreamed about flying. The myth of Icarus is found in Greek mythology some 3,000 years ago. Icarus, ignoring his father's warnings and overcome with exuberance at being able to fly, flew too close to the sun using his wings of wax. The wings melted, he crashed to the ground and perished, forever becoming a symbol of youthful incaution.

Some would say incaution or, more flatteringly, bravery led to early experiments with flight. The collections of the Library of Congress offer many images of experimental flying machines, such as the steam-kite invented by John H. Pennington of Baltimore, seen here.

The most famous early aviators were undoubtedly the Wright brothers, who manned the world's first powered, controlled and sustained flight, in 1903. The Wilbur and Orville Wright Papers are available online and present photographs, correspondence, notebooks and the brothers' glass-plate negatives, which include an image of the 1903 flight at the moment of takeoff.

The collection also includes Orville's diary of the events of the day. Rather than reveling in their making history and achieving a dream of mankind, Orville instead provides a matter-of-fact account packed with what he considered the necessary and important details. Thus his retelling of that day's events contains not a hint of emotion and instead concentrates on getting all the facts on paper. The only suggestion of drama in Orville's telling is his description of how the wind-tossed machine nearly killed John T. Daniels, who had become tangled in its engine and chains.