At a time when European airmen were mastering hot-air ballooning, American bicycle mechanics Orville and Wilbur Wright made an even bolder bid to conquer the skies. Above the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk, N.C., Dec. 17, 1903, the Wright brothers became the first to demonstrate that man could fly in a heavier-than-air craft.

Daring Dreamers...
In 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright showed the world that powered flight in a heavier-than-air craft was possible. In the next decade, the Wright brothers' vision became reality as they and their American contemporaries - - including Glenn Curtiss, Samuel Langley and Claude Ryan - - began designing and manufacturing more advanced flying machines.

In Europe, competition was keen among British, French, German and Italian manufacturers who sought to establish their companies as leaders in the new field of aircraft technology. Henry Farman, Louis Bleriot, the Brazilian engineer and aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont of France, and the German inventor Otto Lilienthal were among Europe's aviation pioneers. The Caproni familys manufacturing company in Italy, the Fokker company in Germany and the A. V. Roe Company of Great Britain soon became household words among international financiers who were engulfed by the "aeroplane mania" at the turn of the century.

By 1914, aviation technology was sophisticated enough to make airplanes one of the more valuable tools of World War I. When the war ended in 1918, the U.S. government found an important peacetime role for aviation: delivering mail. The U.S. Army launched the service as an experimental programon May 15, 1918. Within months, air mail service became the domain of the U.S. Post Office Department.

The success of the government operation intrigued businessmen, who saw in air mail a regular and lucrative source of revenue. They enlisted the support of Pennsylvania Congressman Clyde Kelly, whose efforts led to the passage of the Air Mail Act of 1925. The Act made the carriage of mail by air a private operation under a system of competitive bidding.

One of the successful bidders was Walter T Varney, who launched air mail service over a desolate stretch of terrain between Pasco, Wash., and Elko, Nev., on April 6, 1926. That auspicious day marked the true beginning of commercial air transportation in the United States. Because Varney was a predecessor of United, it also marked the birth of United Airlines.