One hundred years ago, the seagulls, three guys from the Coast Guard's Kill Devil Hills, N.C., Lifesaving Station and a couple of locals witnessed Wilbur and Orville Wright fly a powered machine through the air for the first time.During events this week commemorating the historic flight, thousands are gathering on the blustery dunes where the two bicycle builders once made camp to test their theories and fly their models away from public eye. The highlight of the celebration comes Wednesday when a $1.2-million, 605-pound replica of the original Wright Flyer takes to the skies at the same time and over the same hill where Orville Wright sailed into history. In preparation, the normally low-key Wright Brothers National Park has undergone a $10-million renovation to add two stages for live entertainment and temporary housing for exhibits and aircraft displays. President George W. Bush is scheduled to speak before the 10:35 a.m. flyover. Actor and pilot John Travolta is master of ceremonies. Attendance is expected to be about 200,000, with most folks flying in to partake of the airshows and exhibits and share mutual awe over the achievement of a century ago, a milestone that Bill Gates has called "the single greatest cultural force since the invention of writing."

It wasn't just that the bachelor brothers, working in their spare time for just over four years and spending less than $1,000 of profits from their bicycle business, coolly out-smarted the top scientists and inventors of their day, geniuses that included Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison and Samuel Langley, the renowned head of the Smithsonian Institution.

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