Michael Baier writes


Even so the license-plate from NC reads "first in flight", the first
flight was in Germany by Otto Lilienthal and not the Wright Brothers.
They were the first with an engine but not the first to fly.
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Obviously that is incorrect.  The first flight was by the Montgolfier
brothers in their hot air balloon as described below by the Encyclopedia
Britannica.

The brothers discovered that heated air collected in a lightweight bag would
cause the bag to rise. In 1783 they demonstrated their discovery with a
balloon that rose 3,000 ft (1,000 m) and remained aloft 10 minutes. Later
that year they sent a sheep, a duck, and a rooster up as passengers, and
they followed that experiment with the first manned untethered balloon
flight.

Lilienthal craft while inspiring the Wright's lacked one key aspect the
Wright's had: A motor.  This segment from the web site

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