The airplane is the single most important American invention of the 20th century. The first airplane was created by two bicycle-making brothers from Dayton, Ohio named Wilbur and Orville Wright (Schlager). Their first powered flight dramatically impacted the way war was, and will be, waged forever. Wilbur and Orville’s invention also improved the transportation of goods for Americans and their businesses all over the country. Air travel was another positive result of the invention of the airplane. The first powered flight almost instantly improved America in the 20th century and continues to do so well into the 21st century. The Wright brothers’ first powered flight had a positive effect on America in the 20th century because it added a new dimension to war, created a new method of transporting goods, and opened the door to air travel. Human flight is something that man has dreamed of and strived toward for thousands of years. Often inspired by birds and insects, the world’s brightest inventors, dating back to ancient Greece, have always been trying to fly. Brilliant inventor and artist Leonardo da Vinci sketched remarkable “flying machines” in the fifteenth century (Lauer). Although, it was not until the late nineteenth century, 400 years after da Vinci and thousands of years after the Greeks, when inventors started to make real progress. “German inventor Otto Lilienthal (1848-1896) had some success with gliders in the last part of the nineteenth century”