Although the dream of flying is as old as the hills, the concept of the airplane is just about 200 years old. Before that time, people tried to fly by imitating the birds. They built machines with flapping wings known as ornithopters or fixed wings to their arms.
The wings worked better at bird-scale but could not lift heavy objects off the ground. Therefore, people began to look for alternative ways to fly. In 1783, some aeronauts made risk flights in lighter-than-air balloons that were filled with either hydrogen gas or hot air. However, this was not a practical way to fly since a person could not move to a specific location unless the wind was blowing in the preferred direction.
The Wright brothers were two American engineers, aviators, aviation pioneers, and inventors who are credited with inventing, creating, and flying the first successful airplane in the world. On December 17, 1903, they made the first controlled flight of an aircraft, four miles south of Kitty Hawk, North America.
By 1905, the Wright brothers had developed the first practical fixed-wing aircraft. The Wright brothers were not the first to make and fly experimental aircraft. However, they invented aircraft controls that enable fixed-wing powered flight.
References
http://www.wright brothers.org/History_Wing/History_of_the_Airplane/History_of_the_Airplane_Intro/History_of_the_Airplane_Intro.htm
http://www.history.com/topics/inventions/wright-brothers
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