The Wright Brothers Did Not Fly (1800s deep fake)

The Wright brothers were two frauds

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https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/arts-and-culture/the-curiously-underwhelming-reaction-to-the-wright-brothers-first-flight-20150812-gixaom

The 1904 plane of the Wright Brothers just a fraud and myth

Wright Bros Flight - 'One Of The
Biggest Frauds In History'
Who Invented The Airplane?

A Brazilian, Of Course

PETROPOLIS, Brazil (Reuters) - As Americans prepare to celebrate the centennial of the Wright brother's first flight, a whole country is cringing at what it believes to be a historical injustice against one of its most beloved heroes.

Ask anyone in Brazil who invented the airplane and they will say Alberto Santos-Dumont, a 5-foot-4-inch (1.6 meter) bon vivant who was as known for his aerial prowess as he was for his dandyish dress and high society life in Belle Epoque Paris.

As Paul Hoffman recounts in his Santos-Dumont biography "Wings of Madness," the eccentric Brazilian was the first and only person to own a personal flying machine that could take him just about anywhere he wanted to go.

"He would keep his dirigible tied to a gas lamp post in front of his Paris apartment at the Champs-Elysees and every night he would fly to Maxim's for dinner.

During the day he'd fly to go shopping, he'd fly to visit friends," Hoffman told Reuters.

An idealist who believed flight was spiritually soothing, Santos-Dumont financed his lavish lifestyle and aerial experiments in Paris with the inheritance his coffee-farming father had advanced him as a young man. Always impeccably dressed, he regularly took a gourmet lunch with him on his ballooning expeditions.

But it was on Nov. 12, 1906, when Santos-Dumont flew a kite-like contraption with boxy wings called the 14-Bis some 722 feet on the outskirts of Paris.

It being the first public flight in the world, he was hailed as the inventor of the airplane all over Europe.

It was only later that the secretive Orville and Wilbur Wright proved they had beaten Santos-Dumont at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, three years earlier on Dec. 17.

But to bring up the Wright brothers with a Brazilian is bound to elicit an avalanche of arguments -- some more reasonable than others -- as to why their compatriot's flight didn't count.

"It's one of the biggest frauds in history," scoffs Wagner Diogo, a taxi driver in Rio de Janeiro, of the Wright's inaugural flight. "No one saw it, and they used a catapult to launch" the airplane.

Apparently, the debate comes down to how you define the first flight of an airplane.

Henrique Lins de Barros, a Brazilian physicist and Santos-Dumont expert, argues that the Wright brothers' flight did not fulfill the conditions that had been set up at the time to distinguish a true flight from a prolonged hop.

But Santos-Dumont's flight did meet the criteria, which in essence meant he took off unassisted, publicly flew a predetermined length in front of experts and then landed safely.

"If we understand what the criteria was at the end of the 19th century, the Wright brothers simply do not fill any of the prerequisites," says Lins de Barros.

Brazilians also claim that the Wrights in 1903 launched their Flyer with a catapult or at an incline, thereby disqualifying it from being a true airplane because it did not take off on its own.

Even Santos-Dumont experts like Lins de Barros concede this is wrong. But he claims that the strong, steady winds at Kitty Hawk were crucial for the Flyer's take-off, disqualifying the flight because there is no proof it could lift off on its own.

Peter Jakab, chairman of the aeronautics division at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington and a Wright brothers expert, says such claims are preposterous.

By the time Santos-Dumont got around to his maiden flight the Wright brothers had already flown numerous times, including one in which they flew 24 miles in 40 minutes.

"Even in 1903 the airplane sustained itself in the air for nearly a minute. If it's not sustaining itself under its own power it's not going to stay up that long," Jakab says.

https://www.thesocialhistorian.com/101-writing-prompts/

Even in France -- never a country too eager to agree with the U.S. point of view -- the Wrights are considered to have flown before Santos-Dumont, says Claude Carlier, the director of the French Center for the History of Aeronautics and Space.

"There's a strong nationalist issue at play here," says Marcos Villares, Santos-Dumont's great grandnephew. "Flight was a very important step in human history, in the history of technology. Every country wants to claim priority."

But that is not to say that Santos-Dumont does not deserve recognition for his other contributions.

By rounding the Eiffel Tower in a motorized dirigible in 1901, he helped prove that air travel could be controlled and a practical means of transportation.

"Just to show that the flying machine was practical is an incredible achievement," says Hoffman, his biographer.

At his summer home in the Brazilian mountain town of Petropolis, tour guides perpetuate myths about Santos-Dumont -- such as how he invented the wristwatch.

Santos-Dumont experts deny that assertion, although they concede he was probably the first male civilian to use a watch after asking his friend Louis Cartier to make him a timepiece he could use while flying. Previously, only royalty and soldiers had used watches.

To this day, you can still buy the Santos-model Cartier watch for only a couple thousand dollars.

https://rense.com/general45/keke.htm

10 Examples of Fake News from History

This month, Facebook began prompting users in fourteen countries to read a guide on the fake news phenomenon, with a list of tips that included being skeptical about headlines and checking the source of the story.

‘False news is harmful to our community, it makes the world less informed, and it erodes trust,’ Facebook’s Adam Mosseri said. ‘All of us – tech companies, media companies, newsrooms, teachers – have a responsibility to do our part in addressing it.’

Is fake news a new phenomenon?

Not at all. It turns out, the more things change, the more they stay the same, or as the French say, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

1. The King’s Health is Failing

King George II

Back in the mid-1700s, during the height of the Jacobite rebellion in Great Britain, seditious printers printed fake news, even going so far as to report that King George II was ill, in an attempt to destabilize the establishment.

Such fake news was picked up by more reputable printers and republished, making it difficult to tell fact from fiction. Responding to complaints about the practice, Attorney General Dudley Ryder wrote in a letter:

As the publication of such false news of his Majesty, has a tendency to disquiet the minds of his subjects, hurt public credit, and diminish the regard and duty which they owe him, I think the doing it with such views is an offense punishable at Common Law, and for which an Indictment or Information can lye [sic]. And the frequency of such publications is evidence of such wicked designs.

But as every false report of this kind which may arise from mistake only cannot be charged as a crime, so it is very difficult to say how often it must be repeated in the paper to make it criminal… I don’t know any method to prevent this practice but by prosecuting the offenders when they are guilty.

The English Press in the Eighteenth Century - Routledge Revivals. Google Books. 2010.

As long ago as this was, printing fake news about the Monarchy was not new in the 1700s either. In 1693, a printer by the name of William Anderton was tried at the Old Bailey for High Treason when he published two tracts designed to incite the population to rebellion against the King and that called for the restoration of the Late King James.

On Thursday in the Afternoon, William Anderton , Printer , was brought to the Bar, and an Indictment of High-Treason was read against him; for that he did Compose, Print and publish Two Malicious, Scandalous and Traitorous Libels,

The first Entitled, Remarks upon the present Confederacy, and late Revolution in England.

The second Entitled, A French Conquest neither desirable, nor practicable.The Proceedings of the Old Bailey

The jury found Anderton guilty and he was executed at Tyburn on Friday, 16 June 1693.

2. Reports of Peace with France Send Stocks Soaring in London

London_Stock_Exchange

In May 1803, as Britain was preparing to end the Treaty of Amiens and declare war on France, a letter was hand delivered to Sir Charles Price, the Lord Mayor of London at the Mansion-house. Allegedly written by Lord Hawkesbury, and sealed with his personal seal, the letter claimed that the dispute with France was amicably settled.

The Mayor at once took the letter to the Stock Exchange to share the joyous news.

Stocks immediately rose 5 per cent.

Meanwhile, suspicions about the validity of the letter were raised, and enquiries ensued. When it was determined that the letter was indeed a forgery, the Treasury sent the following press release to the editors of the London evening papers:

I have to acquaint you, that the message which was supposed to have been sent this morning from Lord Hawkesbury to the Lord Mayor stating that the Negotiations with France had terminated amicably, was a fabrication, and totally destitute of truth. I am, Sir, your most obedient humble Servant, John Sargent. ~1

By then, of course, it was too late. Many stocks had changed hands at inflated rates and the Committee of the Stock Exchange called for reports from the Brokers, to determine who might have gained from the fraudulent letter.

All attempts to identify the perpetrator of the hoax failed.

3. Life on the Moon

On 21 August 1835, The New York Sun published a series of articles about the discovery of life on the moon.

These were falsely attributed to a well known astronomer of the time named Sir John Herschel.

Fake Moon Hoax

Lithograph of the Ruby Amphitheater on the Moon

The article reported that Herschel had made these discoveries using new “hydro-oxygen magnifiers” and went on to describe in believable scientific detail, how the discovery was made.

Bizarre life forms, inhabitants of the moon, were described, painting a fantastical picture.

Of animals, he classified nine species of mammalia, and five of ovipara. Among the former is a small kind of rein-deer, the elk, the moose, the horned bear, and the biped beaver.

he last resembles the beaver of the earth in every other respect than in its destitution of a tail, and its invariable habit of walking upon only two feet. It carries its young in its arms like a human being, and moves with an easy gliding motion.GREAT ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES Lately Made, The Sun, Thursday, August 27, 1835

After accomplishing their goal of adding many new subscribers to their newspaper that August, the paper quietly announced in September that the story had been nothing more than a hoax.

4. Fake Report of Outrage on French Railway

Madame Marquet, the wife of an Algerian apothecary, claimed in December 1890 that she had been set upon and robbed while riding in the ladies compartment on a French train. The train had departed from Monte Carlo and on reaching Toulon, she told authorities that at some point in the journey while she was sleeping, a thief had made off with 7,000 francs.
Roulette

There was some skepticism about her claim when she was unable to provide any detail about her assailant, but another report of a similar occurrence some days later lent credence to her story.

An Italian man attacked a passenger travelling between Lyons and Grenoble with a knife and threatened to kill him unless he handed over his money.

The attacker then jumped from the train but was captured when the victim pulled the emergency cord and stopped the train.

It was thought that the same assailant had robbed Madame Marquet after hypnotising her and drugging her with chloroform.

The authorities still had suspicions however, and further investigation finally turned up the truth.

Madame Marquet had gone to Monte Carlo to collect a debt but once there, she was lured by the roulette tables and lost all of the money.

Fearing her husband’s anger, Madame Marquet made up a tale about being robbed. Finally, under pressure from the police, she confessed she had fabricated the story.

She was prosecuted on a charge of disseminating false news.

5. Jack the Ripper

The Illustrated Police News

In 1888, a series of brutal slayings in the Whitechapel district of East London were widely reported.

Accounts of the eleven murders, typically involving prostitutes, were described in graphic detail in the newspapers of the time. Many tried to profit from the high profile case by spreading fake news.

Two young men, full of drink, were arrested and charged with spreading fake news. The pair were in Wright’s Lane in Kensington with their bundles of newspapers, and were heard to shout “Arrest of Jack the Ripper Tonight” at the top of their voices.

William Macdonald and George Write, news vendors, were taken before the court but later discharged.

James Kendrick, another news vendor, was also charged with crying out false news about Jack the Ripper.

After slow Sunday sales, he began calling that there was a “Horrible Discovery of a Missing Woman at Charing Cross”. Later, he cried out that four women were discovered slashed at Charing Cross.

One customer, who bought one of his papers, found no such article inside and took the matter to the police.

The news vendor was sentenced to 14 days in gaol, with hard labour.

6. The Report of My Death was an Exaggeration

In June 1897, reports out of New York were that Mark Twain was ‘dying in poverty in London’. That this was fake news was confirmed by Mark Twain himself.

Mark Twain Amused

New York journal and advertiser, June 2, 1897, Library of Congress

On 2 June 1897, an article headlined Mark Twain Amused, appeared in the New York Journal under the byline of Frank Marshall White.

When reached for comment, Mark Twain told the reporter that he did not know whether to be amused or annoyed. He assured him that he was living with his wife and children in a very nice house in Chelsea and was hardly living in poverty, nor was he ill. It was Twain’s belief that the story came about because a cousin of his, James Ross Clemens of St Louis, was ill in London two or three weeks previously, although he had since recovered.

The report of my death was an exaggeration.

The report of my poverty is harder to deal with.

My friends might know that unless I were actually dying in poverty I should not live in poverty when I am receiving offers to lecture by every mail.

The fact is that I was under contract to write the book that I have just finished or I should have accepted those offers.

Mark Twain in New York journal and advertiser, June 2, 1897

7. The Fake News Trap

In 1903, the Clarksburg Daily Telegram published a purposely fake news story in an effort to expose the Clarksburg Daily News who they knew were pilfering their articles.

The story was about the shooting of “Mejk Swenekafew” near Columbia mines and predictably, it appeared the next day in the Daily News.

The story told of how Swenekafew, a Slav living near the Columbia coal mine was shot and was in critical condition after an altercation with an acquaintance over a pet dog.
The most unlikely name featured in the story, Swenekafew, spelled backwards read we-fake-news.

The Daily News, thus being caught out, was forced to acknowledge that it had been lifting articles from the Daily Telegram for several months.

Clarksburg Daily News

The Clarksburg telegram., September 25, 1903, Page 8, Chronicling America

‘The Daily News has been Caught fair and square in its nefarious work,’ said the Daily Telegram. ‘They have yesterday and today been publicly held up to public scorn and contumely and have actually admitted in their own columns that they “FAKE THE NEWS”.’ 2

8. What’s That Got to do with the Price of Eggs?

New York World Egg Boycott

New York World 1916

In 1916, the price of eggs having risen to an unprecedented 80 cents a dozen in some parts of the country, the women of America decided to boycott eggs.

By the end of November, there was a state-wide boycott of eggs planned by the women and public officials. The St Paul housewives in Minnesota declared a boycott on cold storage eggs.

Milwaukee club women appealed to members to stop buying eggs for six weeks. Mrs. Ellis Logan began collecting signatures on a petition to Washington to ask Congress to provide relief from the high cost of America’s morning eggs

Then on Friday, 8 December that year, an apparent victory was in sight. Headlines of “Eggs Drop Ten Cents” and “Cost of Living Smashed” appeared in the Chicago newspapers but the following day, it became apparent that this was nothing but fake news since the retail grocers in the city continued selling eggs at the same price. It was alleged that the newspapers were in cahoots with the food retailers.

The prices continued to fluctuate with supply and demand and the cost of eggs continued to rise steadily in the years following the 1916 boycotts.

9. World War One Fake News

In the spring of 1917, as World War One raged across Europe, both the Times and the Daily Mail in London published accounts from ‘anonymous sources’ that claimed they had visited a ‘Kadaver’ factory called Kadaververwertungsanstalt in Germany.

This factory was said to extract glycerine from the corpses of the fallen to make soap and margarine.

Germans and their Dead

Now, long after the war, the story has been attributed to MI7. In the employ of MI7 during the war were 13 officers and 25 paid writers, including Major Hugh Pollard, who spread this false story through the newspapers as a special correspondent for the Daily Express.

This horrific fake news story was only one of thousands reported by both sides during the war. In an example from the German propaganda machine, the French Minister of War reported in 1914 that the Germans in Alsace-Lorraine were publishing news that the French Parliament had voted against the war and that the President of the Republic had been assassinated.

10. War of the Worlds

The fake news of an alien attack on America is a classic one. On Sunday, 30 October 1938, the Columbia Broadcasting network aired an adaptation of the 1898 novel War of the Worlds by HG Wells.

During the broadcast, the first two thirds of the story were aired over the radio as a series of breaking news alerts and the effect was so realistic that many listeners panicked, believing that there truly was an alien invasion taking place.

The show began as an interruption to regular programming announcing that a professor had observed a series of gas explosions on Mars.

Later, a bulletin stated that a meteor had fallen in New Jersey, killing 15,000 people.

Another news flash contradicted the first, saying that the meteor was actually a cylindrical object containing strange creatures from Mars armed with death ray guns.

War of the Worlds

War of the Worlds Hoax is Headline News in Australia

Even before the end of the broadcast, doctors, nurses, soldiers and sailors reported for duty, ready to fight the Martians. Police stations across the country responded to thousands of calls. Newspaper reporters, hearing of the invasion, rushed to prepare special editions. Producers of the show were quite unprepared for this response, never thinking that anyone would believe that the broadcast was real.

Reasons for Fake News

As we’ve seen, reasons for fake news stories differ. Some are spread for political advantage, while others are spread for financial gain. Other fake news stories are nothing more sinister than an attempt to entertain, some stories come about by mistake while others are an act of desperation.

But whatever the reason, it is quite certain that Fake News is Not New News

Whether you are skimming through historical newspaper archives, or browsing through your Facebook feed, don’t believe everything you read.

Check your facts with reliable sources and be skeptical of sensational claims.

Read this free collection of letters and articles:

“A. I. Root, the liar number four after the Wright Brothers and their mentor, Octave Chanute”.

The story about the more than 160 flights performed by the Wright brothers between December 17, 1903, and October 5, 1905, rely just on one witness, Amos I. Root from Medina, Ohio, the only one quoted by Orville Wright as independent and disinterested.

Root claimed in an article which appeared in January 1905 that he had seen Wilbur Wright flying in a circuit on September 20, 1904.

However, if you read his letters to the Wrights plus the numerous articles in which this man from Medina mentioned the two aeroplanists (all these texts are attached to the above mentioned book), you remark that Root did not see any powered flight on September 20, 1904.

He was just a victim of the lies spread by the two Daytonians and, at the same time, of his own obsession with heavier than air flying machines. A. I. Root was also a person who wished to get a (fraudulent) place in the history of aviation believing that the effort of reminding repeatedly his readers, he had witnessed the first circular flight ever performed by a man carrying plane, would make his account more credible and finally his story would become an accepted truth.

Fortunately, Roots’ lies have been uncovered

I wrote an email to Tom Crouch (well known author), bringing to his attention the above mentioned work, without saying that the two inventors were impostors or other offensive things.

This was his answer:

"I have not had time to do more than peruse your document. Apparently you doubt that A.I. Root was present at the Wright brother’s first circular flight. I will respond in detail when I have read and considered your argument.

If you do not believe me, read this free collection of letters and articles:

"A. I. Root, the liar number four after the Wright Brothers and their mentor, Octave Chanute"

The story about the more than 160 flights performed by the Wright brothers between December 17, 1903, and August 7, 1908, rely just on one witness, Amos I. Root from Medina Ohio, the only one quoted by Orville Wright as independent and disinterested.

Root claimed in an article which appeared in January 1905 that he had seen Wilbur Wright flying in a circuit on September 20, 1904

However, if you read his letters to the Wrights plus the numerous articles in which this man from Medina mentioned the two aeroplanists (all these texts are attached to the above mentioned book), you remark that Root did not see any powered flight on September 20, 1904.

He was just a victim of the lies spread by the two Daytonians and, at the same time, of his own obsession with heavier than air flying machines. A. I. Root was also a person who wished to get a (fraudulent) place in the history of aviation believing that the effort of reminding repeatedly his readers, he had witnessed the first circular flight ever performed by a man carrying plane, would make his account more credible and finally his story would become an accepted truth.

Fortunately, Roots' lies have been uncovered

https://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/showthread.php?t=71501

http://vamrco.com/when-the-wright-brothers-became-fraud-examiners/

A-I-Root-Liar-No-4-After-Wright-Brothers-and-Chanute-Book-by-Bogdan-Lazar.pdfUnavailable

https://helicopterforum.verticalreference.com/topic/21536-the-wright-brothers-were-two-frauds-i-have-the-proof/

https://medium.com/@robertwerner_84437/the-wright-brothers-were-two-frauds-902410d578b3

https://www.corporatejetinvestor.com/news/wright-brothers-aircraft-title-owner-accused-of-helping-drug-traffickers-register-aircraft-191/

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