The "Wrong" Brothers

How yesterday’s Olympic Games opening cerimony reopened a Century old controversy.

I was raised knowing our fellow Brazilian Santos Dumont was the inventor of the Airplane. At school, news, history books, films… they all showed the great achievements of this remarkable man. There has never been any doubt in my mind, nor on the minds of everyone I knew, that 14 Bis was the first "heavier than Air" machine ever to fly.

You can then imagine then the shock, the magnitude of the surprise, when I suddenly learned that, up north, fellows of my age were taught a completely different story. Their history books, their news, films, all around them were about some "Wright Brothers", not Santos Dumont. How come ?!!!

My first reaction, when I learned it, was to laught. How could these guys be so much misinformed! Could a patriotic feeling be such a blinding force?

However, as my Northen friends so fiercely and stronlgy defended their version of the story, I began to question how could that be. How could two countries, culturally very similar in many ways, yet, have a starkly different version of history.

At first, I started checking which claim was real. Which of the two stories was the actual truth? Could it be possible that, instead, we all in Brazil and Europe have been lied to during all this time? Could the Wright Brother claims be right?

It really didn't take too long to grasp a good understanding of the actual facts. While Santos Dumont's flight in October of 1906 was accompanied by thousands of people, filmed, photographed, measured and formally attested. The Wright brothers claim was just that, a claim. Nobody could independently confirm it and they refused any request for showing it to anyone else. None of the pictures and films Americans normally associate with the “historical fact” is from 1903. Rather, they are from much later, from 1908, two years after 14 bis and one after Demosielle, Dumont’s following airplane, the first one sold and manufactured in bulk. Even by the brothers own account, their "flight" was a uncontrolled catapulted "free fall" at best. To make matters worse, a 2003 replica attempt to "prove" Wright's claim resulted in an outright failure (Chronology of a fraud).

Ok, so now that facts are checked, how could it be that still, such an enormous group of people, an entire nation, gets it so wrong? Amazes me how history refuses to give to the right guy, not the wrong brothers, the deserved recognition.

I guess the answer to that question is much more complex. It relates to how the brain works, the Turing Machine we all have inside, the auto replication of memes for the replication sake, or by our own willingness to believe in this or that story. Maybe a peculiar sense of pride (nationalism?) of someonelse's achievements as part of his own, as if, somehow, people felt itself more important because a fellow citizen "invented" this or that, as if citizenship would catalyze a shared credit, a common victory…

History will eventually correct it, and America itself is a proof of it. Despite being named after Amerigo Vespucci, then acknowledged as the discoverer of these lands, we all know today who Christopher Columbus was. We will not see it..