Two years, four months and three days before the successful flights of the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk, a birdlike monoplane took to the air at early dawn on August 14, 1901, near Bridgeport, Connecticut, carrying its inventor and builder, Gustave Whitehead, a distance of approximately one half mile.  Follow  these links for more information!

Informational Links:

Gustave Whitehead's Flying Machine
The Gustave Weisskopf Museum
Wright or Whitehead? - No 21B Flies
First Powered Flight
Gustav Albin Whitehead (1874 - 1927)
Biography of Gustav Weisskopf - word doc
Flying High with Gus Whitehead
Whitehead Propellers
Was there "flight before the wrights?"
Experiments with motor-driven  aeroplanes
Eye Witness - see bottom of page