You forgot about Santos-Dumont, and many others besides. Europe definitely didn't believe it was a hoax, in fact there were lots of people working at attemptin

You forgot about Santos-Dumont, and many others besides. Europe definitely didn't believe it was a hoax, in fact there were lots of people working at attempting powered flight. That does not diminish the accomplishments of the Wright brothers in any way, but to make it seem as though Europe did not believe powered flight was possible is not true. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_history The time was simply ripe, lots of the bits and pieces had been developed by those that had gone before, such as Lilienthal (who built some pretty amazing gliders) and many others.