Confederate Flying Machine

The history of aviation may never be the same. Forty years before the Wright brothers flew at Kitty Hawk, frantic inventors and engineers rushed to create steam-powered flying machines that they hoped would decide the fate of the Civil War. Mark Ragan, author and project historian of the Hunley (a Civil War submarine), recently discovered shocking new evidence suggesting that both sides of the conflict were struggling to craft steam-powered flying machines, capable of bombing the enemy.

• documentary
• nonfiction