From ancient times and into the middle ages, man had dreamed of
taking to the sky, of soaring into the blue like the birds. One savant in Spain in the year 875 is known to have covered himself with feathers in the attempt. Others devised wings of their own design and jumped from rooftops and towers—some to their deaths—in Constantinople, Nuremberg, Perugia. Learned monks conceived schemes on paper. And starting about 1490, Leonardo da Vinci made the most serious studies. He felt predestined to study flight, he said, and related a childhood memory of a kite flying down onto his cradle.
The Wright Brothers by David McCullough (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2015, 2016)
In case you missed it, I wrote last week in depth about this book.