What's interesting is that the Wright brothers couldn't reproduce the flight:
"The landing broke the front elevator supports, which the Wrights hoped to repair for a possible four-mile (6 km) flight to Kitty Hawk village. Soon after, a heavy gust picked up the Flyer and tumbled it end over end, damaging it beyond any hope of quick repair. It was never flown again. [...]After a single statement to the press in January 1904 and a failed public demonstration in May, the Wright Brothers did not publicize their efforts, and other aviators who were working on the problem of flight (notably Alberto Santos-Dumont) were thought by the press to have preceded them by many years."
They did however develop the Flyer II in 1904, and their Flyer III in 1905 flew a "39-minute, 24-mile (39 km) nonstop circling flight on October 5." Arguably, controlled directional flight is a much more important feature.
But most interesting is this part of the story:
"The issue of control was correctly seen as critical by the Wrights, and they acquired a wide American patent intended to give them ownership of basic aerodynamic control, despite the brothers' (and others in pioneer aviation circles) likely complete lack of knowledge of the 1868 British patent regarding roll control for aircraft. This was fought in both American and European courts. European designers, however, were little affected by the litigation and continued their own development. The legal fight in the U.S., however, had a crushing effect on the nascent American aircraft industry, and by the time of World War I, the U.S. had no suitable military aircraft and had to purchase French and British models."
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Flyer
What's interesting is that the Wright brothers couldn't reproduce the flight:
"The landing broke the front elevator supports, which the Wrights hoped to repair for a possible four-mile (6 km) flight to Kitty Hawk village. Soon after, a heavy gust picked up the Flyer and tumbled it end over end, damaging it beyond any hope of quick repair. It was never flown again. [...]After a single statement to the press in January 1904 and a failed public demonstration in May, the Wright Brothers did not publicize their efforts, and other aviators who were working on the problem of flight (notably Alberto Santos-Dumont) were thought by the press to have preceded them by many years."
They did however develop the Flyer II in 1904, and their Flyer III in 1905 flew a "39-minute, 24-mile (39 km) nonstop circling flight on October 5." Arguably, controlled directional flight is a much more important feature.
But most interesting is this part of the story:
"The issue of control was correctly seen as critical by the Wrights, and they acquired a wide American patent intended to give them ownership of basic aerodynamic control, despite the brothers' (and others in pioneer aviation circles) likely complete lack of knowledge of the 1868 British patent regarding roll control for aircraft. This was fought in both American and European courts. European designers, however, were little affected by the litigation and continued their own development. The legal fight in the U.S., however, had a crushing effect on the nascent American aircraft industry, and by the time of World War I, the U.S. had no suitable military aircraft and had to purchase French and British models."