It took pride, deceit, and a giant catapult to set off the feud between the Wright brothers and the Smithsonian. On December 17, 1903, the Wrights made history when they flew across a blustery beach in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The airplane they flew that day is now a centerpiece of the National Air and Space Museum’s collection. This is the story of how i ... Show More
Jun 24
American Aspirations: A Nation in Pursuit
Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III has spent a lifetime thinking about how history gets told. Before becoming the head of the Smithsonian, he was a curator, someone whose job is deciding which stories, people, and objects help us make sense of ourselves. So as America appr ... Show More
42m 14s
Jun 17
U.S. History in 100 Objects (with Roman Mars)
A screw. A stuffed possum. A shoe-sizing device. What could any of these objects possibly tell us about the history of the United States?When we think of historic artifacts, we tend to picture the extraordinary: Abraham Lincoln's pocket watch, the original Kermit the Frog, Martin ... Show More
31m 13s
Jan 2025
The Wright Brothers | Fliers or Liars | 2
By 1903, inventors and adventurers in Britain and France were launching their own experimental aircraft skyward. In the U.S., crowds gathered outside Washington, D.C. to see Samuel Langley of the Smithsonian Institution test his highly-anticipated “aerodrome”, only to watch the m ... Show More
40m 28s
Mar 2018
An Aerial Spectacle in the Wright Brothers' Backyard
The Wright Brothers flew the first practical aircraft through the skies just outside Dayton, Ohio in 1905. Today, that same air space sees wonders Orville and Wilbur could only dream of: fighter jets, bombers, and other aircraft flying upside down, soaring in formations, writing ... Show More
5m 37s
Jan 2025
The Wright Brothers | The Art of the Bird | 1
In the late-1890s, two brothers from Ohio, Wilbur and Orville Wright, became obsessed with what Wilbur described as “the problem of flight.” With no formal training or funding, they threw themselves into studying the mechanics of birds, determined to design a new method of flying ... Show More
39m 50s