Who Invented Powered Flight?

The year 2003 was the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers’ invention of the first powered airplane. The first successful flight occurred on December 17th, 1903 at Kill Devil Hills in Kittyhawk, North Carolina.
Hey, Wait a minute!
They may have made ‘the first successful flight’ but could you say they ‘invented' the first powered airplane?
Before the Wright Brothers across the Atlantic Ocean…..in Britain……
Percy Pilcher was born in Bath, England in 1867. He designed a powered triplane and built it in 1899. By the end of September 1899 his triplane was nearly ready to fly (except, that is, for mounting the engine), but while gliding in his previously reliable “Hawk”, there was a structural failure. Pilcher fell and died two days later. His triplane was never flown but the “invention” beat the Americans by 4 years.
Or could it have been Bill Frost, a Welsh carpenter, who patented the aeroplane in 1894. He flew his powered flying machine the following year in 1895 that was 8 years before the Wright brothers!
Think about it….before the famous flight in America some 55 years earlier John stringfellow took flight in his steam propelled twin engines at Chard in Somerset.