Marco Rubio mistakenly said the Wright Brothers were from North Carolina. Ohioans are furious.
You might say Ohio is a little sore about that whole Wright Brothers thing: 112 years later, Dayton residents still feel jilted that their hometown boys Orville and Wilbur left the Buckeye State for Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, to take their first flight. And Florida Sen. Marco Rubio just made the mistake of reminding them.
During a speech at the Detroit Economic Club Thursday, Rubio praised the Wright Brothers for their monumental aviation breakthrough in 1903, but called them the "two brothers from Kitty Hawk," ticking off residents of Dayton, where the building of the plane (and the longer 1904 flight at Huffman Prairie) took place.
"Rubio gets the Wright Brothers wrong," The Columbus Dispatch bemoaned Thursday evening. Even Dayton's mayor, Nan Whaley, weighed in. "It's clear that like the rest of the Republican candidates, Rubio too is full of hot air because that's all Kitty Hawk gave the Wright Brothers," he said.
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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