The Wright Brothers Pocket Watch
from Times Ticking Watch Talk Hosted by Times Ticking
Most visitors to the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum arrive expecting spectacle - silver jets, roaring engines, spacecraft that carried human beings into the void. That’s why the small Hampden pocket watch sitting quietly behind glass is so disarming. It doesn’t glow, spin, or hover. It’s just a modest American timekeeper, a warm yellow-gold case worn smooth by life in a working man’s pocket. And yet, against all expectation, this little watch was there - actually there - on the day humanity left the ground for the first time. It rode in Orville Wright’s coat, ticking steadily as the world shifted beneath him.
Embed this episode
No transcript yet.