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Through the centuries, no nation has embraced kites more enthusiastically than Japan. Buddhist monks probably brought kites to Japan from China and Korea between the sixth and eighth centuries.
Japan_And_Korea.html
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Several forms of kites and windsocks appear in writings and drawings as far back as 105 A.D. when Roman soldiers used them as military banners, but flying kites on a line was unknown.
Kites_in_the_western_world.html
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The most famous kite flyer of all, Benjamin Franklin, conducted his big experiment in June of 1752 in secret with only his son as an assistant because he loathed the ridicule that he would have to endure if the experiment failed.
Benjamin_Franklin.html
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Sir George Cayley experimented with kites between 1799 and 1809 in the quest to develop a heavier-than-air flying machine capable of carrying a passenger.
Sir_George_Cayley.html
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One of the strangest uses of kite power was developed by schoolmaster George Pocock. In 1822, he used a pair of kites to pull a carriage at speeds of up to 20 miles per hour. Some of his kite trips were recorded at over 100 miles.
George_Pocock.html
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In 1833, a British meteorologist, E. D. Archibold, started using kites to lift anemometers to measure wind speed at various altitudes.
E_D_Archibold.html
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Without a kite and a ten-year-old boy named Homan Walsh, the Niagara Falls Bridge would not have been built in 1847. The problem the engineers of the day faced was how to get the first line across the steep cliffs, rapids and swirling winds.
Homan_Walsh_.html
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By the late nineteenth century kites were being seen as serious scientific instruments. Kites were seen as a good starting point in the development of powered, heavier-than-air flying machines.
Industrial_Age_of_Kites.html
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Lawrence Hargrave is without a doubt the man behind the largest discoveries in heavier-than-air flight. He experimented near Sydney, Australia in the 1890s with a number of kite designs.
Lawrence_Hargrave.html
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Avid kite flyers as children, Wilber and Orville Wright developed this love into the first successful airplane. In August of 1899, building on Hargrave's wing, they built a biplane kite and discovered that by varying the position of the four lines that they could simulate the twisting wings of a soaring bird.
Wright_Brothers.html
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Well known in American history as a Wild West showman, Samuel Cody, (no relation to William Fredrick Cody, A.K.A. Buffalo Bill) was a very successful Kite and Aeroplane Designer at the turn of the century in England.
Samuel_Cody.html
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Although now best known for inventing the telephone, in the early twentieth century many people believed that Alexander Graham Bell invented the first airplane. His first flight, in fact, was in 1908, five years after the Wright brothers’.
Alexander_Graham_Bell.html
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During World War II, Paul Garber, who would eventually be historian emeritus at the Smithsonian Institution, was a Lieutenant on the carrier USS Block Island.
Paul_Garber.html
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Kites were used as an observation device during both the first and second world wars. They were used as a means of increasing the range of visibility by German submarines during both of these wars.
Military_Kites.html
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The oldest form of maneuverable kite was developed in Asia, and uses one string rather than two to control it. Traditionally this sort of kite is made from tissue paper and bamboo.
Fighting_Kites.html
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The oldest form of maneuverable kite was developed in Asia, and uses one string rather than two to control it. Traditionally this sort of kite is made from tissue paper and bamboo.
Peter_Powell.html
