Excerpt:
In 1903, two events launched the history of modern aviation. The Wright brothers made their first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and William Boeing, born Oct. 1, 1881, in Detroit, Michigan, left Yale engineering college for the West Coast.
After making his fortune trading forest lands around Grays Harbor, Washington, Boeing moved to Seattle in 1908 and, two years later, went to Los Angeles for the first American air meet. Boeing tried to get a ride in one of the airplanes, but not one of the dozen aviators participating in the event would oblige. Boeing came back to Seattle disappointed, but determined to learn more about this new science of aviation.
Annotation:
This is an attractive corporate site. Features include biographies of the founders of Boeing, North American Rockwell and McDonnell Douglas and corporate histories of the three companies. Biographies include audio and video exhibits while histories of the four corporations include lengthy essays, biographical sketches of corporate figures and aeronautical engineers, and chronologies. The site also provides detailed information about the weaponry, aerospace vehicles, military and commercial aircraft produced by the three companies. and the front page is complemented by a photo gallery. Researchers looking for corporate archives will not find them here and will have to search through various pages in the www.boeing.com site.