At 10:35 in the morning of Thursday, December 17, 1903, man got his wings. On the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville Wright flew the motorized aircraft he and his brother Wilbur had constructed to a distance less than the length of the wingspan of today's 747 jet. They made three other flights the same day, the final lasting 59 seconds for a distance over the ground of 852 feet. The world would never be the same after that day. Mankind was finally off the ground in powered flight. And man's experiences in the air would forevermore join the literature of human endeavors, to be...