And on August 8, 1908, the eighth day of the eighth month of the eighth year, the world saw, for the first time, that human beings can fly. At Le Mans, the racetrack town southwest of Paris. There were only about two or three hundred people, maybe not even that many, in the little grandstand at the racetrack that day. But within a very few days thousands of people were coming from all over France and all over Europe, and Wilbur became the hero of the day.
