The Wright brothers? Sure, we know them. Orville and Wilbur. They had a bicycle shop in Ohio, didn't they? And working with bicycles somehow led them to building an aircraft that a person could fly on. They flew one at Kitty Hawk in North Carolina. "First in flight." Sure, we learned all about them in school. Well, no. We didn't. That's the trouble. And David McCullough is here to clue us in on their full, amazing history.

The Wrights must have seemed like an average Midwestern family, at first. Their father Milton was a bishop in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. He spent a lot of time traveling, preaching and doing administrative church work. He and his wife Susan encouraged their children to read and to question. Of their five surviving offspring, Wilbur (1867-1912), Orville (1871-1948) and Katharine (1874-1929) especially took this advice to heart. Katharine became a teacher. Wilbur and Orville were mechanically inclined and were eager to figure out whatever interested them most.

At first, it was the new bicycle craze. Later, it was flight. They took to fixing and building bicycles all day in their Dayton shop, and then testing possibilities for flying machines at night. They kept the Sabbath holy as a day of rest, as they had been taught: they spent their Sundays by either reading or by visiting. Though the brothers lost their mother early on, in 1889, they never lost the confidence of their constant cheerleaders, their father and Katharine. Theirs was as close a family unit as you could get.

The work ethic of this duo is a model for anyone wanting to get something done. They put in their 10,000 hours, long before this marker became known for making somebody an expert. These two guys did it, and all from scratch. They didn't have college degrees. On their own, they conducted a vast amount of investigation and original research. They read writings by early aeronautical experimenters of the day, both those located in the United States and in Europe. They asked the Smithsonian Institute and others for the best scientific data available. They corresponded and met with knowledgeable individuals from around the world.

Once they learned that Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, had some of the best sustained winds in the country, the two men traveled there several times to make practice runs with their flyer. When they succeeded on the beach, they returned to Dayton and continued to practice at a nearby field owned by Farmer Huffman. Eventually their paths led them to perform test flights for the U.S. government as well as for several European countries. And suddenly, within that first decade of the 20th century, it was proven hundreds of times that man could safely fly. A major transport and cultural change surfaced. An aircraft industry was born. And it was led by the Wrights.

As is his style, David McCullough tells the stories by weaving together passages from primary sources: letters, diaries and newspaper accounts. Fortunately for him (and for us), these people corresponded a lot. And somebody kept all of the letters. How better is it to hear of events as they unraveled, told in the voices of the people who witnessed it? This accomplished author also knows how to synthesize and to organize all of the material to make a cohesive narrative for us to enjoy. Sometimes his telling dives into technical talk, with remarks about rudders, wing wrap, struts and such. But this was the nitty-gritty of what the brothers were figuring out. After all, even a small defect in the mechanism could send a pilot to injury or death.

Yes, the lives and the deeds of Wilbur and Orville Wright make for a truly compelling story, right down to the surprising (to me, at least) capstone detail revealed in the very last sentence of the book.

I listened to McCullough read this book during my daily commutes, for 10 hours on eight CDs. It was a wonderful experience. A few months earlier, I had listened to two of his other books: The Johnstown Flood (2005), and The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West (2019). Although both of these histories were quite fascinating, neither one was read by the author himself. I'm glad that this one was. I still think it's best to hear the researcher share the details that he unveiled.

The Wright Brothers is not just a good story, well told. It's an inspirational and motivational tale of average people making above average accomplishments, through their own curiosities, experimentations, diligence and just plain hard work. These two men taught themselves the principles of flight, and they ended up building successful airplanes, seemingly out of thin air, so to speak. What did you do today?