The thing that throws me the most is that in 1901 we had the first powered heavier-than-air flight, a flimsy thing which flew for a few minutes; by 1915 there w

The thing that throws me the most is that in 1901 we had the first powered heavier-than-air flight, a flimsy thing which flew for a few minutes; by 1915 there were thousands of aircraft routinely running all sorts of missions in the war. But to be fair, the Wright brothers first flight might be the start of an era, but the history of aviation has at least 1 century of intense experimentation and developing leading up to that.