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Kitty Hawk, North Carolina

December 17, 2011 by · Comments Off on Kitty Hawk, North Carolina 

Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Kitty Hawk is a town in Dare County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 3,000 at the 2000 census. It was established in the early 18th century as Chickahawk.

Kitty Hawk became famous after the Wright brothers of Dayton, Ohio, selected a nearby site to make their first controlled powered airplane flights on December 17, 1903. The site of the flights is four miles (6 km) south of the town, near the sand dunes known as the Kill Devil Hills, a location the Wrights had used for practice with their gliders. Kitty Hawk is often mistakenly credited as the site of the powered flights. After the flights, the brothers walked back to Kitty Hawk, where they sent a telegram from the Weather Bureau office to their father informing him of their success.

The aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63), the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber AV-19, the aircraft transport ship USS Kitty Hawk (AKV-1), and the Apollo 14 command module have been named for the town.

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