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Louis Braille was a French educator. His blindness led him to develop a system that allows blind people to read and write. This system is called braille. Early Life Louis...

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George Washington Carver ( c. 1864 - January 5, 1943) was an African American agricultural scientist and inventor. He taught southern farmers to plant crops other than cotton and methods to prevent soil depletion. Apart from his work to improve the lives of farmers, Carver was also a leader in promoting environmentalism. He received numerous honors for his work, including the Spingarn Medal of the NAACP.

Early years

George Washington Carver was born into slavery in Diamond Grove, Newton County, near Crystal Place, now known as Diamond, Missouri, during the early to mid 1860s. The exact date of his birth is uncertain and was not known to Carver - however, it was before slavery was eliminated in Missouri in January 1865, after the American Civil War. His master, Moses Carver, was a German-American immigrant who had purchased George's parents, Mary and Giles, from William P. McGinnis on October 9, 1855, for $700.

When George was only a week old, he, a sister, and his mother were kidnapped by night raiders from Arkansas. George's brother, James, was rushed to safety from the kidnappers. The kidnappers sold the slaves in Kentucky. Moses Carver hired a Union scout named John Bentley to find them, but Bentley was only able to locate the infant George. Moses made a deal with the raiders for George's return and rewarded Bentley for finding him. After slavery was eliminated, Moses Carver and his wife Susan raised George and his older brother James as their own children. They encouraged George in his schooling, and "Aunt Susan" taught him the basics of reading and writing.

Black people were not allowed to attend the public school in Diamond Grove. George decided to go to a school for black children 10 miles (16 km) south in Neosho. When he reached the town, he found the school closed for the night, so he slept in a nearby barn. The next morning he met a kind woman, Mariah Watkins, from whom he wished to rent a room. When he introduced himself as "Carver's George," as he had done his whole life, she replied that from now on his name was "George Carver." George liked Mariah Watkins, and her words, "You must learn all you can, then go back out into the world and give your learning back to the people," made a great impression on him.

At the age of 13, due to his desire to attend the academy in Fort Scott, Kansas, he relocated to the home of another foster family there. He attended several schools before earning his diploma at Minneapolis High School in Minneapolis, Kansas.

College education

Carver applied to several colleges before being accepted at Highland University in Highland, Kansas. When he arrived, however, they rejected him because of his race. In August 1886, Carver traveled by wagon from Highland to Eden Township in Ness County, Kansas. He homesteaded a claim near Beeler, where he maintained a small conservatory (a building or room where plants are grown) of plants and flowers and a geological collection. He manually plowed 17 acres (69,000 m ²) of the claim, planting rice, corn, Indian corn, and garden produce, as well as various fruit trees, forest trees, and shrubbery. He also earned money by performing odd jobs in town and working as a ranch hand.

In early 1888, Carver obtained a $300 loan at the Bank of Ness City for education, and by June he left the area. In 1890, Carver started studying art and piano at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa. His art teacher, Etta Budd, recognized Carver's talent for painting flowers and plants; she encouraged him to study botany at Iowa State Agricultural College (now Iowa State University) in Ames.

When he began there in 1891, he was the first black student at Iowa State. Carver's Bachelor's thesis for a degree in Agriculture was "Plants as Modified by Man," dated 1894. Iowa State University professors Joseph Budd (Etta's father) and Louis Pammel convinced Carver to continue there for his master's degree. Carver did research at the Iowa Experiment Station under Pammel during the next two years. His work at the experiment station in plant pathology and mycology caused Americans to recognize and respect him as a botanist. Carver received his master of science degree in 1896 and taught as the first black faculty member at Iowa State.

Tuskegee Institute

In 1896, Booker T. Washington invited Carver to head the Agriculture Department at Tuskegee Institute. Carver taught there for 47 years, developing the department into a strong research center. Carver accomplished much during his time at Tuskegee Institute: He taught methods of crop rotation. He introduced several other cash crops for farmers that would also improve the soil of areas that only grew cotton. He started research into crop products and taught generations of black students farming methods for self-sufficiency.

Carver was as concerned with his students' character development as he was with their intellectual development. He wrote a list of eight virtues for his students to strive toward:

Be clean both inside and out.

Neither look up to the rich nor down on the poor.

Lose, if need be, without squealing.

Win without bragging.

Always be considerate of women, children, and older people.

Be too brave to lie.

Be too generous to cheat.

Take your share of the world and let others take theirs.

Carver designed a mobile classroom to take education out to farmers. He called it a "Jesup wagon" after the New York financier and philanthropist Morris Ketchum Jesup, who gave Carver money to support the program.

Rise to fame

Carver developed ways to improve soils in which the nitrogen was used up by repeated plantings of cotton. Together with other agricultural experts, he urged farmers to put nitrogen back into their soils by practicing organized crop rotation: alternating cotton crops with plantings of sweet potatoes or legumes (such as peanuts, soybeans, and cowpeas). These crops restore nitrogen to the soil and are good for people to eat. Farmers who rotated their crops benefitted in two ways: their cotton grew better than before and they also had alternative cash crops. To train farmers to successfully rotate and cultivate the new crops, Carver developed an agricultural program for Alabama that was similar to the one at Iowa State.

Carver founded a research laboratory in which he and his assistants worked to make the new crops popular by developing hundreds of uses for them. They did original research and shared the crops' usefulness and recipes that they had collected from others. Carver distributed his information as agricultural bulletins. He wanted as many people as possible to have access to this valuable information.

Carver became one of the most well-known African Americans of his time. His work was known by officials in the national capital before he became a public figure. President Theodore Roosevelt publicly admired his work. In 1916, Carver was made a member of the Royal Society of Arts in England, one of only a handful of Americans at that time to receive this honor. Carver's promotion of peanuts gained him the most notice. The United Peanut Associations of America invited Carver to speak at their 1920 convention. He discussed "The Possibilities of the Peanut" and showed 145 peanut products.

From 1915 to 1923, Carver concentrated on researching and experimenting with new uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes, soybeans, pecans, and other crops, as well as having his assistants research existing uses. This work, and especially his testifying to Congress, made him widely known as a public figure. Carver noticed that U.S. peanut farmers were not making much money because the price of imported peanuts was less than the peanuts grown in the U.S. This caused him to speak before Congress in support of a tariff on imported peanuts, which Congress passed in 1922.

Life while famous

During the last two decades of his life, Carver seemed to enjoy his celebrity status. He was often on the road promoting Tuskegee Institute, peanuts, and racial harmony. Although he only published six agricultural bulletins after 1922, he published articles in peanut industry journals and wrote a newspaper column, "Professor Carver's Advice." Business leaders came to seek his help, and he often responded with free advice. Three American presidents- Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, and Franklin Roosevelt-met with him, and the Crown Prince of Sweden studied with him for three weeks. From 1923 to 1933, Carver toured white Southern colleges for the Commission on Interracial Cooperation.

With his increasing notability, Carver became the subject of biographies and articles. In 1932 it was written that Carver and his peanut products were almost solely responsible for the rise in U.S. peanut production after the boll weevil devastated the American cotton crop beginning about 1892.

From 1935 to 1937, Carver participated in the USDA Disease Survey. Carver had specialized in plant diseases for his master's degree. In 1937, Carver attended two chemurgy (the chemical and industrial use of organic raw materials) conferences during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, concerned with developing new products from crops. He was invited by Henry Ford to speak at a conference and they developed a close friendship.

Upon returning home one day, Carver took a bad fall down a flight of stairs; he was found unconscious by a maid who took him to a hospital. Carver died January 5, 1943, at the age of 78 from complications resulting from this fall. He was buried next to Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee University.

On his grave is written: He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world.

Carver's life savings totaled $60,000, all of which he donated to the Carver Museum and to the George Washington Carver Foundation.

The George Washington Carver Museum at Tuskegee Institute was approved in 1938, built, and dedicated in 1941. The Museum held Dr. Carver's large collections of native plants, minerals, birds and vegetables; his products from the peanut, sweet potato and clays; and his many paintings, drawings, and textile art. In December 1947, a fire broke out in the Carver Museum, and much of the collection was damaged. Time magazine reported that all but three of the 48 Carver paintings at the museum were destroyed.

A movement to establish a U.S. national monument to Carver began before his death. Because of World War II, spending that did not help pay for the war had been banned by order of the President. Missouri senator Harry S. Truman sponsored a bill in favor of a monument. The bill was passed and on July 14, 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated $30,000 for the George Washington Carver National Monument west-southwest of Diamond, Missouri, the area where Carver had spent time in his childhood. This was the first national monument dedicated to an African American and the first to honor someone other than a president. The 210-acre (0.8 km ²) national monument complex includes a bust of Carver, a ¾-mile nature trail, a museum, the 1881 Moses Carver house, and the Carver cemetery. The national monument opened in July 1953.

Carver was featured on U.S. 1948 commemorative stamps. From 1951 to 1954, he was pictured on a commemorative half dollar coin. A second stamp honoring Carver, with a value of 32¢, was issued on February 3, 1998, as part of the Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series.

In 1977, Carver was elected to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans. In 1990, Carver was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In 1994, Iowa State University awarded Carver a Doctor of Humane Letters. In 2000, Carver was a charter inductee in the USDA Hall of Heroes as the "Father of Chemurgy." In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed George Washington Carver as one of 100 Greatest African Americans.

In 2005, Carver's research at the Tuskegee Institute was made a National Historic Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society. On February 15, 2005, an episode of Modern Marvels included scenes from within Iowa State University's Food Sciences Building and about Carver's work.

Two ships, the Liberty ship SS George Washington Carver and the nuclear submarine USS George Washington Carver (SSBN-656), were named in his honor. Many institutions continue to honor George Washington Carver. A garden and statue of him are dedicated in the famous Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis. Dozens of elementary schools and high schools are named after him. National Basketball Association star David Robinson and his wife, Valerie, founded an academy named after Carver; it opened on September 17, 2001, in San Antonio, Texas. The Carver Community Cultural Center, a historic center located in San Antonio, is named for him.

George Washington Carver quotes

"Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses."

"Learn to do common things uncommonly well."

"There is no shortcut to achievement. Life requires thorough preparation-veneer isn't worth anything."

"It is simply service that measures success."

"Start where you are, with what you have. Make something of it and never be satisfied."

"I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour if we will only tune in."

"Reading about nature is fine, but if a person walks in the woods and listens carefully, he can learn more than what is in books, for they speak with the voice of God."

"The secret of my success? It is simple. It is found in the Bible."

Interesting facts about George Washington Carver

George Washington Carver was famous for his work in Alabama but was born in Missouri.

Carver considered many weeds "nature's vegetables" and would eat sandwiches made with them.

George Washington Carver was the first African American to have a national park named after him.

Carver possessed the hidden talents of a pianist and painter. His art was shown at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago.

He encouraged black farmers to grow peanuts. He developed and promoted many products made from peanuts, but none became successful in stores.

Carver is often mistakenly given the credit for the invention of peanut butter. In fact, he did not do that.

Carver helped Henry Ford make peanut rubber that was to be used for cannons.

Carver believed that peanut oil could help those who suffered from polio, but no scientific evidence proved it.

In 1941, magazine named Carver a "Black Leonardo."

He was widely recognized and praised in the white community for his many achievements and talents.

In Spanish: George Washington Carver para niños

Images for kids

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Learn George Washington Carver facts for kids

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Louis Braille (4 January 1809 - 6 January 1852) was a French educator and inventor of a system of reading and writing for use by the blind or visually impaired. His system remains virtually unchanged to this day, and is known worldwide simply as braille.

Blinded at the age of three in one eye as a result of an accident with a stitching awl in his father's harness making shop, an infection set in and spread to both eyes, resulting in total blindness. At that time there were not many resources in place for the blind but nevertheless, he excelled in his education and received a scholarship to France's Royal Institute for Blind Youth. While still a student there, he began developing a system of tactile code that could allow blind people to read and write quickly and efficiently. Inspired by the military cryptography of Charles Barbier, Braille constructed a new method built specifically for the needs of the blind. He presented his work to his peers for the first time in 1824.

In adulthood, Louis Braille served as a professor at the Institute and had an avocation as a musician, but he largely spent the remainder of his life refining and extending his system. It went unused by most educators for many years after his death, but posterity has recognized braille as a revolutionary invention, and it has been adapted for use in languages worldwide.

Louis Braille was born in Coupvray, a small town about twenty miles east of Paris, on 4 January 1809. He and his three elder siblings - Monique Catherine (b. 1793), Louis-Simon (b. 1795), and Marie Céline (b. 1797) - lived with their parents, Simon-René and Monique, on three hectares of land and vineyards in the countryside. Simon-René maintained a successful enterprise as a leatherer and maker of horse tack.

As soon as he could walk, Braille's time was spent playing in his father's workshop. At the age of three, the child was playing with some of the tools, trying to make holes in a piece of leather with an awl. Squinting closely at the surface, he pressed down hard to drive the point in, and the awl glanced across the tough leather and stabbed him in one of his eyes. A local physician bound and patched the affected eye and even arranged for Braille to be met the next day in Paris by a surgeon, but no treatment could save the damaged organ. In agony, the young boy suffered for weeks as the wound became severely infected. He eventually lost sight in the other eye, likely due to sympathetic ophthalmia.

Louis Braille survived the torment of the infection but by the age of five he was completely blind in both eyes. Due to his young age, Braille did not realize at first that he had lost his sight, and often asked why it was always dark. His parents made many efforts - quite uncommon for the era - to raise their youngest child in a normal fashion, and he prospered in their care. He learned to navigate the village and country paths with canes his father hewed for him, and he grew up seemingly at peace with his disability. Braille's bright and creative mind impressed the local teachers and priests, and he was accommodated with higher education.

Braille studied in Coupvray until the age of ten. Because of his combination of intelligence and diligence, Braille was permitted to attend one of the first schools for blind children in the world, the Royal Institute for Blind Youth, since renamed to the National Institute for Blind Youth in Paris. Braille, the last of the family's children to leave the household, departed for the school in February 1819. At that time the Royal Institute was an underfunded, ramshackle affair, but it provided a relatively stable environment for blind children to learn and associate together.

Haüy system

The children were taught how to read by a system devised by the school's founder, Valentin Haüy. Not blind himself, Haüy was a philanthropist who devoted his life to helping the blind. He designed and manufactured a small library of books for the children using a technique of embossing heavy paper with the raised imprints of Latin letters. Readers would trace their fingers over the text, comprehending slowly but in a traditional fashion which Haüy could appreciate.

Braille was helped by the Haüy books, but he also despaired over their lack of depth: the amount of information retained in such books was necessarily minor. Because the raised letters were made in a complex artisanal process using wet paper pressed against copper wire, the children could not hope to "write" by themselves. So that the young Louis could send letters back home, Simon-René provided him with an alphabet made from bits of thick leather. It was a slow and cumbersome process, but the boy could at least trace the letters' outlines and write his first sentences.

The handcrafted Haüy books all came in uncomfortable sizes and weights for children. They were laboriously constructed, very fragile, and expensive to obtain: when Haüy's school first opened, it had a total of three books. Nonetheless, Haüy promoted their use with zeal. To him, the books presented a system which would be readily approved by educators and indeed they seemed - to the sighted - to offer the best achievable results. Braille and his schoolmates, however, could detect all too well the books' crushing limitations. Nonetheless, Haüy's efforts still provided a breakthrough achievement - the recognition of the sense of touch as a workable strategy for sightless reading. The Haüy system's main drawback was that it was "talking to the fingers with the language of the eye".

Teacher and musician

Braille read the Haüy books repeatedly, and he was equally attentive to the oral instruction offered by the school. He proved to be a highly proficient student and, after he had exhausted the school's curriculum, he was immediately asked to remain as a teacher's aide. By 1833, he was elevated to a full professorship. For much of the rest of his life, Braille stayed at the Institute where he taught history, geometry, and algebra.

Braille's ear for music enabled him to become an accomplished cellist and organist in classes taught by Jean-Nicolas Marrigues. Later in life, his musical talents led him to play the organ for churches all over France. A devout Catholic, Braille held the position of organist in Paris at the Church of Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs from 1834 to 1839, and later at the Church of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul.

Braille system

Braille was determined to invent a system of reading and writing that could bridge the gap in communication between the sighted and the blind. In his own words: "Access to communication in the widest sense is access to knowledge, and that is vitally important for us if we [the blind] are not to go on being despised or patronized by condescending sighted people. We do not need pity, nor do we need to be reminded we are vulnerable. We must be treated as equals - and communication is the way this can be brought about."

In 1821, Braille learned of a communication system devised by Captain Charles Barbier of the French Army. Some sources depict Braille learning about it from a newspaper account read to him by a friend, while others say the officer, aware of its potential, made a special visit to the school. In either case, Barbier willingly shared his invention called "night writing" which was a code of dots and dashes impressed into thick paper. These impressions could be interpreted entirely by the fingers, letting soldiers share information on the battlefield without having light or needing to speak. The captain's code turned out to be too complex to use in its original military form, but it inspired Braille to develop a system of his own.

Braille worked tirelessly on his ideas, and his system was largely completed by 1824, when he was fifteen years old. From Barbier's night writing, he innovated by simplifying its form and maximizing its efficiency. He made uniform columns for each letter, and he reduced the twelve raised dots to six. He published his system in 1829, and by the second edition in 1837 he had discarded the dashes because they were too difficult to read. Crucially, Braille's smaller cells were capable of being recognized as letters with a single touch of a finger.

Braille created his own raised-dot system by using an awl, the same kind of implement which had blinded him. In the process of designing his system, he also designed an ergonomic interface for using it, based on Barbier's own slate and stylus tools. By soldering two metal strips across the slate, he created a secure area for the stylus which would keep the lines straight and readable.

By these modest means, Braille constructed a robust communication system. "It bears the stamp of genius" wrote Dr. Richard Slating French, former director of the California School for the Blind, "like the Roman alphabet itself".

Musical adaptation

The system was soon extended to include braille musical notation. Passionate about his own music, Braille took meticulous care in its planning to ensure that the musical code would be "flexible enough to meet the unique requirements of any instrument". In 1829, he published the first book about his system, Method of Writing Words, Music, and Plain Songs by Means of Dots, for Use by the Blind and Arranged for Them. Ironically this book was first printed by the raised letter method of the Haüy system.

Publications

Braille produced several written works about braille and as general education for the blind. Method of Writing Words, Music, and Plain Songs... (1829) was revised and republished in 1837; his mathematics guide, Little Synopsis of Arithmetic for Beginners, entered use in 1838; and his monograph New Method for Representing by Dots the Form of Letters, Maps, Geometric Figures, Musical Symbols, etc., for Use by the Blind was first published in 1839. Many of Braille's original printed works remain available at the Braille birthplace museum in Coupvray.

New Method for Representing by Dots... (1839) put forth Braille's plan for a new writing system with which blind people could write letters that could be read by sighted people. Called decapoint, the system combined his method of dot-punching with a new specialized grill which Braille devised to overlay the paper. When used with an associated number table (also designed by Braille and requiring memorization), the grill could permit a blind writer to faithfully reproduce the standard alphabet.

After the introduction of decapoint, Braille gave assistance to his friend Pierre-François-Victor Foucault, who was working on the development of his Raphigraphe, a device that could emboss letters in the manner of a typewriter. Foucault's machine was hailed as a great success and was exhibited at the World's Fair in Paris in 1855.

Although Braille was admired and respected by his pupils, his writing system was not taught at the Institute during his lifetime. The successors of Valentin Haüy, who had died in 1822, showed no interest in altering the established methods of the school, and indeed, they were actively hostile to its use. Dr. Alexandre François-René Pignier, headmaster at the school, was dismissed from his post after he had a history book translated into braille.

Braille had always been a sickly child, and his condition worsened in adulthood. A persistent respiratory illness, long believed to be tuberculosis, dogged him. Despite the lack of a cure at the time, Braille lived with the illness for 16 years. By the age of 40, he was forced to relinquish his position as a teacher. When his condition reached mortal danger, he was admitted to the infirmary at the Royal Institution, where he died in 1852, two days after he had reached the age of 43.

Through the overwhelming insistence of the blind pupils, Braille's system was finally adopted by the Institute in 1854, two years after his death. The system spread throughout the French-speaking world, but was slower to expand in other places. However, by the time of the first all-European conference of teachers of the blind in 1873, the cause of braille was championed by Dr. Thomas Rhodes Armitage and thereafter its international use increased rapidly. By 1882, Dr. Armitage was able to report that "There is now probably no institution in the civilized world where braille is not used except in some of those in North America." Eventually even these holdouts relented: braille was officially adopted by schools for the blind in the United States in 1916, and a universal braille code for English was formalized in 1932.

New variations in braille technology continue to grow, including such innovations as braille computer terminals; RoboBraille email delivery service; and Nemeth Braille, a comprehensive system for mathematical and scientific notation. Almost two centuries after its invention, braille remains a system of powerful and enduring utility.

Honors and tributes

The immense personal legacy of Louis Braille was described in a 1952 essay by T.S. Eliot:

"Perhaps the most enduring honor to the memory of Louis Braille is the half-conscious honor we pay him by applying his name to the script he invented - and, in this country [England], adapting the pronunciation of his name to our own language. We honor Braille when we speak of braille. His memory has in this way a security greater than that of the memories of many men more famous in their day."

Braille's childhood home in Coupvray is a listed historic building and houses the Louis Braille Museum. A large monument to him was erected in the town square which was itself renamed Braille Square. On the centenary of his death, his remains were moved to the Panthéon in Paris. In a symbolic gesture, Braille's hands were left in Coupvray, reverently buried near his home.

Statues and other memorials to Louis Braille can be found around the world. He has been commemorated in postage stamps worldwide, and the asteroid 9969 Braille was named for him in 1992. The Encyclopædia Britannica lists him among the "100 Most Influential Inventors Of All Time".

The 200th anniversary of Braille's birth in 2009 was celebrated throughout the world by exhibitions and symposiums about his life and achievements. Among the commemorations, Belgium and Italy struck 2-euro coins, India released a set of two commemorative coins (Rs 100 and Rs 2), and the USA struck a one dollar coin, all in Braille's honor.

World Braille Day is celebrated every year on Braille's birthday, January 4.

In popular culture

Because of his accomplishments as a young boy, Braille holds a special place as a hero for children, and he has been the subject of a large number of works of juvenile literature. Other appearances in the arts include the American TV special Young Heroes: Louis Braille (2010); the French TV movie Une lumière dans la nuit (2008) (released in English as The Secret of Braille); and the dramatic play Braille: The Early Life of Louis Braille (1989) by Lola and Coleman Jennings. In music, Braille's life was subject of the song Merci, Louis, composed by the Halifax singer-songwriter Terry Kelly, chair of the Canadian Braille Literacy Foundation. The Braille Legacy, a musical which tells the story of Louis Braille, directed by Thom Southerland and starring Jérôme Pradon, debuted at the Charing Cross Theatre in April 2017.

Images for kids

An Indian two rupee coin minted in honour of Louis Braille's 200th birth anniversary (1809-2009)

In Spanish: Louis Braille para niños

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Facts Just for Parents, Teachers and Students

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Name: Wright Brothers

Profession: Aviation Pioneers

Born: 8-19-1871 (Orville) and 4-16-1867 (Wilbur)

Died: 1-30-1948 (Orville) and 5-30-1912 (Wilbur)

Resting Place: Woodlawn Cemetery (Orville and Wilbur)

Legacy: Invented the first self-powered flying aircraft

27 Wright Brothers Facts for Kids

1. The Wright Brothers were two brothers that were pioneers in aviation during the late 19th and 20th century.

2. The Wright Brothers are most well-known for create the first self-powered flying aircraft.

3. The Wright Brothers is a term used collectively describe Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright.

4. Orville Wright was born on August 19th, 1871 in Dayton, Ohio, United States.

5. Wilbur Wright was born on April 16th, 1867 in Millville, Indiana, United States.

6. Orville and Wilbur Wright were the sons of Milton Wright and Susan Catherine Koerner.

7. Orville and Wilbur Wright were two of the seven children by Milton Wright and Susan Catherine Koerner.

8. Orville and Wilbur Wright never got married or had children. They claimed they were married to their work.

9. Orville Wright died at the age of 76 from a heart attack on January 30th, 1948 in Dayton, Ohio, USA.

10. Wilbur Wright died at the age of 45 from typhoid fever on May 30th, 1912 in Dayton, Ohio, USA.

11. In 1889, the Wright Brothers opened the Wright & Wright Job Printers printing business in Dayton, Ohio.

12. In 1892, the Wright Brothers opened the Wright Cycling Exchange, a bicycle sales and repair shop. They would later rename the business to the Wright Cycle Company.

13. In late 1900, the Wright Brothers explore Kitty Hawk and decide it's a suitable location for their experiments. They choose Kitty Hawk because it's isolated and has the right winds.

14. In 1902, the Wright Brothers complete up to 1,000 successful glides with their 1902 Wright Glider.

15. In 1902, the Wright Brothers begin planning and building the 1903 Wright Flyer.

16. On December 14th, 1903 the Wright Brothers fail to get the Wright Flyer to fly.

17. On December 17th, 1903 the Wright Brothers successfully flew the first self-powered aircraft, the Wright Flyer.

18. In 1904, Wilbur Wright makes the first half-circle turn with an aircraft in the air. A few days later Orville Wright makes the first complete circle with an aircraft in the air.

19. In 1906, the Wright Brothers are granted patent number 821,393 for their Wright Flyer.

20. In September 1908, the first recorded airplane related fatality occurs with a Wright machine. A propeller on the Wright machine breaks off and kills Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge and serious wounds Orville Wright.

21. In May 1909, the Wright Brothers start the Wright Company. Wilbur serves as the president, while Orville and Andrew Freedman serve as vice presidents.

22. In May 1910, the Wright Company opens the Huffman Prairie Flying Field, a flight school in Ohio.

23. In May 1910, both Wright Brothers fly together at Huffman Prairie Flying Field. This is the first and only time the brothers fly together in an aircraft.

24. In May 1912, Wilbur Wright dies from typhoid fever at the age of 45.

25. In October 1915, Orville Wright sells the Wright Company and devotes his full attention to aviation research.

26. In May 1918, Orville completes his last flight as a pilot in a 1912 model biplane.

27. In January 1948, Orville Wright dies from a heart attack at the age of 77.

Pictures of Wright Brothers

A picture of Oriville Wright in a 1905 picture.

A picture of Wilbur Wright in a 1905 picture.

A picture of the first flight of the Wright Flyer.

Additional Resources on Wright Brothers

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Wright Brothers Facts for Kids - Facts Just for Parents, Teachers and Students

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Name: Wright Brothers Profession: Aviation Pioneers Born: 8-19-1871 (Orville) and 4-16-1867 (Wilbur) Died: 1-30-1948 (Orville) and 5-30-1912 (Wilbur) Resting Place: Woodlawn Cemetery (Orville and Wilbur) Legacy: Invented the first self-powered flying aircraft The Wright Brothers were two brothers that were pioneers in aviation during the late 19th and 20th century.

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Mary Elizabeth Anderson (February 19, 1866 - June 27, 1953) was an American real estate developer, rancher, viticulturist, and inventor of the windshield wiper blade. On November 10, 1903 Anderson was granted her first patent for an automatic car window cleaning device controlled from inside the car, called the windshield wiper.

Mary Anderson was born in Burton Hill Plantation, Greene County, Alabama, at the start of Reconstruction in 1866. Her parents were John C. and Rebecca Anderson. Anderson was one of at least two daughters. The other daughter was Fannie, who remained close to Anderson all her life. Their father died in 1870, and the young family was able to live on the proceeds of John's estate. In 1889 she moved with her widowed mother and sister to the booming town of Birmingham, Alabama. Anderson's education is unknown. She was never married and did not have any children.

In Birmingham, Anderson became a real estate developer soon after settling and built the Fairmont Apartments on Highland Avenue. In 1893, Anderson left Birmingham to operate a cattle ranch and vineyard in Fresno, California. In 1898, she returned to Birmingham to help care for an ailing aunt. Anderson and her aunt moved into the Fairmont Apartments with Anderson's mother, her sister Fannie, and Fannie's husband G. P. Thornton. Anderson's ailing aunt brought a trunk with her that contained a collection of gold and jewelry. From that time forward, Anderson's family lived comfortably.

Invention (windshield wipers)

In a visit to New York City in the winter of 1902, Anderson sat in a trolley car on a frosty day. Anderson observed that the trolley car driver struggled to see past the windows because of the falling sleet. The trolley car's front window was designed for bad-weather visibility, but its multi-pane windshield system worked very poorly. Therefore, to clear the sights, the driver needed to open the window, lean out of the vehicle, or stop the car to go outside in order to wipe the windscreen with his hands. Anderson, who was not an engineer but an entrepreneur, identified the problem and its opportunity. She envisioned a windshield wiper blade that the trolley driver could operate from the inside. At that time, it rarely occurred to anyone else to eliminate the problem. It was something drivers simply accepted and dealt with.

When she returned to Alabama she hired a designer for a hand-operated device to keep a windshield clear and had a local company produce a working model. She applied for, and in 1903 was granted, a 17-year patent for a windshield wiper. The patent application was filed on June 18, 1903. On November 10, 1903, the United States Patent Office awarded Anderson patent number 743,801 for her Window Cleaning device.

Her device consisted of a lever inside the vehicle that controlled a rubber blade on the outside of the windshield. The lever could be operated to cause the spring-loaded arm to move back and forth across the windshield. A counterweight was used to ensure contact between the wiper and the window. The device could be easily removed if desired after the winter was over. Similar devices had been made earlier, but Anderson's was the first windshield clearing device to be effective. Anderson's simple mechanism and basic design have remained much the same, but unlike today's windscreen wipers, Anderson's could be removed when not needed.

In 1903 when Anderson applied for the patent, cars were not very popular. Henry Ford 's Model A automobile had not been manufactured yet. Therefore, when Anderson tried to sell the rights to her invention through a noted Canadian firm of Dinning and Eckenstein in 1905, they rejected her application. They argued, "we do not consider it to be of such commercial value as would warrant our undertaking its sale." Furthermore, many could not see the value of her invention and stressed the risk that the driver would be distracted by operating the device and the moving wipers.

By 1913 the automobile manufacturing business had grown exponentially and windshield wipers were standard equipment. In 1922, Cadillac became the first car manufacturer to adopt them as standard equipment. However, Anderson never profited from her invention, the patent expiring in 1920.

In 1917, Charlotte Bridgewood patented the "electric storm windshield cleaner," the first automatic wiper system that used rollers instead of blades. Like Anderson, Bridgewood never made any money from her invention. Sara-Scott Wingo, rector of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Richmond, Va., and Anderson's great-great niece suspect Anderson's invention never went anywhere because Anderson was an independent woman. Wingo said in an interview with NPR News, "She didn't have a father. She didn't have a husband. And the world was kind of run by men back then."

By the 1920s, Anderson's brother-in-law had died, and Anderson was again living in the Fairmont Apartments in Birmingham with her sister Fannie and her mother. She continued to manage the Fairmont Apartments until her death at the age of 87. At the time of her death, she was the oldest member of South Highland Presbyterian Church. She died at her summer home in Monteagle, Tennessee. Her funeral was conducted by.Dr Frank A Mathes at South Highland and she was buried at Elmwood Cemetery.

In 2011 Anderson was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

In Spanish: Mary Anderson (inventora) para niños

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Learn Mary Anderson (inventor) facts for kids