1903 — Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright, Ohio bicycle makers, launch the world’s first successful manned flight in a motorized airplane in 1903. The flight, at Kitty Hawk, N.C., covered 852 feet and lasted 59 seconds.

Elsewhere that year:

• Solon M. Langworthy begins publishing Backbone, a chiropractic journal.
• The U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor is established.
• The first cross-country trip in an automobile is completed. A Packard car arrives in New York City 52 days after it leaves San Francisco.
• Picasso paints “La Vie,” a work representative of his celebrated “blue period.”
• Richard Steiff designs the first teddy bears, named after President Theodore Roosevelt.
• Henry Ford organizes and becomes head of the Ford Motor Co.