[first lines]
The Neanderthal Man:
[watches a gull flying over a beach]
Narrator:
Ever since man started to think, he's wanted to fly. But flying was strictly for the birds.
The Neanderthal Man:
[flapping his arms enthusiastically, he leaps from a sandy bluff and falls onto the beach below]
Narrator:
And continued to be so for thousands of years.
[in ancient Greece, a man wearing makeshift wings is forced at swordpoint off a temple roof]
Narrator:
Man, eternally optimistic, kept trying.
[a man in medieval times, also in man-made wings, jumps from a cliff, after which a variety of failed experimental flying machines from the late 1800s are depicted]
Narrator:
Encouraged by his many successes, man kept trying. Through his genius and his inventiveness, he managed to get his machines off the ground - and sometimes, he brought them down again.
[Count Emilio Ponticelli is seen starting his flying machine]
Narrator:
All over the world, early pioneers were making flying history. And in Italy, Count Emilio Ponticelli made what many people claim was the first long-distance flight.
[the screen widens, as Ponticelli is seen crashing about 100 feet after taking off]
Narrator:
There was no doubt about it; by nineteen hundred and ten, flying had become the rage - man had conquered the air, and people everywhere were all agog about those magnificent men in their flying machines.
