Meet Icarus the Second, the first English pig to fly

John Steinbeck often drew a pig with wings next to his signature, a character he affectionately called 'Pigasus.'

The pair began their aviation research by studying the 'mechanics' of birds

Taking inspiration from gliding pioneer Otto Lilienthal—whose gliders resembled the wings of birds—Wilbur took to observing birds to understand how they do it, in order to solve the problem of flight. This opening episode on the brothers explores their lives and accomplishments.

Before the first human spaceflight in 1961, scientists sent fruit flies, monkeys, and dogs into space.

Pigs are of particular interest for xenotransplantation because they are close to human size, are easily raised in captivity, and have large litters.

Illustrator Ian Falconer's 'Olivia' piglet character was based on his niece

The New Yorker illustrator first began drawing fun pictures of a young pig named Olivia in the 1990s for his niece of the same name. Now, the books have sold millions and have been turned into a TV show. Meet the real Olivia behind the character in this brief interview.

The Flyer sat in a shed for 13 years behind the brothers’ Dayton bike shop

While the wood is the same used in the 1903 flight, the muslin has been replaced twice. After laying forgotten in sheds, the vehicle eventually took on national importance. However, the Smithsonian Institution did not recognize it until the 1940s, after it spent time at the Science Museum in London.

Pig-to-human transplant work has raised concerns about donor pigs' living conditions.

In medieval France, pigs were once put on trial

Pigs are omnivorous animals. There are hundreds of records of pigs killing and eating children in medieval Europe. In France, these tragedies often resulted in trials and then hangings. Some pigs were held in jail for years before being executed.

Wilbur published key papers, gave speeches in the burgeoning aviation community

Much of the theoretical work is credited to Wilbur, whose scientific mind observed birds and early pioneers to discover the key problem to solve was control. This 1901 speech surveys the recent work in the field and showcases what the brothers worked on two years before their breakthrough flight.

Watch a 1908 Wright Flyer demo with Wilbur and a passenger near Le Mans, France

One of the earliest filmed flights, this demonstration in France helped dispel doubts over the Wrights’ claims to powered, controlled flight. Such demos helped launch the pair to fame five years after their seminal flight in Kitty Hawk.

A film crew captured a 5-year-old Flannery O’Connor and her talented chicken

British Pathé, an international news program, ventured out to Georgia to film O’Connor (then known by her given name, Mary) and her chicken, whom she’d taught to walk backward. O’Connor would later joke that it was the highlight of her life.

T.S. Eliot rejected George Orwell's 'Animal Farm,' suggesting that the despotic pigs might be the best leaders for the farm.

Xenotransplants are an experimental last resort for the terminally ill when they cannot or will not receive a human organ.

North Carolina adopted 'First in Flight' license plates in 1982—to snarky reviews

Many locals surfaced the irony of enshrining the accomplishments of two men from Ohio on the license plates of North Carolinans. Nonetheless, the style endures to this day, alongside Ohio’s “Birthplace of Aviation.”

1928: A quote from Amelia Earhart

"Ours is the commencement of a flying age, and I am happy to have popped into existence at a period so interesting."

Chinese scientists transplanted a pig lung into a human being in 2025—but it had to be removed.

Inside the pigeon race with $50K at stake

More than 1,000 pigeons are released each year at the American Racing Pigeon Union convention as owners wait to see which of the birds arrives home first. This essay unwraps the niche activity's paradoxical love for the birds despite its at times utilitarian treatment of them.

The ancestors of ostriches and emus could fly

The discovery of a 56 million-year-old fossil bone helps explain how this (mostly) flightless family of birds spread to so many different continents.

After the first gene-edited pig heart transplant patient died, a latent pig virus was discovered inside his xenotransplant.

Pterosaurs were dinosaur cousins that ruled the skies

Giant flying lizards or massive leathery birds? Pterosaurs were neither. What they were were the first vertebrates to fly through the skies. This National Geographic video discusses the anatomical features that made their flight possible, how big these awesome creatures could get, and which species was named after a legendary vampire.

Watch an amateur fly a 1902 Wright glider at the Kitty Hawk dunes

Billy Vaughan recreates the test flights of the Wright gliders in the exact location the brothers conducted them. He argues an October 1902 glider flight—not the December 1903 one—was the key innovative moment, implementing three-axis control. Host Baratunde rides a glider in perfect windy conditions in this re-creation.

Some claim the Wrights weren’t first in flight

Their scientific and engineering achievements aside, the Wrights’ claim to be first in flight is debated—and rejected—by some in the industry. Other early pioneers like Gustave Whitehead or Alberto Santos-Damonto are said to deserve the title.

The Flying Tigers: American fighter pilots who fought for China in WWII

Read the story of the Flying Tigers, a unit of American pilots, many Chinese-Americans, hired by the Chinese in 1941 to fight the Japanese in the skies. While the US wasn't officially at war with Japan until later on, some of the earliest American "victories" over the Japanese were won by the Flying Tigers. Read more of this amazing bit of aviation history here.

Before modern sanitation, New York City let pigs roam the streets to eat its garbage

In the early 1820s, an estimated 20,000 hogs roamed Manhattan's streets, feeding on trash that the city lacked a system to collect. Pigs were eventually banned at the urging of wealthy residents, who feared they would deter tourists and drive down property values.

Sputnik 1—launched in 1957—was Earth's first artificial satellite

Its launch accelerated US investment in the Space Race amid fears the Soviet Union had the technology to launch intercontinental nuclear warheads. It would be followed by Sputnik 2, which carried the first living being—a dog named Laika—to orbit.

Read why one man agreed to get a pig kidney in 2025 to replace his own failing organ

The 68-year-old New Hampshire man told USA Today that a motivator for the experimental surgery was his belief that he was going to die anyway, and other people suffering from kidney disease could gain valuable insights. Yet the surgery bought him time—he lived 271 days with a pig organ and later received a human kidney transplant. Clinical trials began in 2026 to test the pig xenotransplants in more people.

See a timeline of early flights, patent approvals and the birth of the Wright Company

The brothers’ most intense period of creativity and progress came between 1901 and 1910, when their work at Kitty Hawk culminated in the first powered flight. The pair, however, were not the most business-savvy, and they struggled to take financial advantage of their pioneering work in the field.

The 'maiden of maiden voyages' who taught the world how to fly

In 1939, Clara Adams set the world record for the fastest person to circle the globe via commercial airliner, though she was a passenger and not a pilot. This article explores the impact of Adams' journey on the commercial flight industry. During...

A quote by Lauren Bacall

"Imagination is the highest kite one can fly."

The public mostly doubted the Wrights’ flight claims for five years

Coverage of the pair’s success often described them as barely educated bike mechanics. They struggled to gain traction with the public. It took interest from French business leaders and the US Signal Corps to bring the pair into separate demonstrations of their planes.

Explore a timeline of advancements in American aviation

From the Wright brothers' flight of the first powered plane in 1903 near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, to SpaceX's debut of the Falcon 9 rocket in 2010 with reusable boosters, this interactive shows off the technological evolution of flight, from mechanical propulsion to ballistic spaceflight. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

O'Connor raised 40 peacocks, which became symbols for her fiction

O'Connor was drawn to peacocks because of their dichotomy—people were drawn to the beauty of their feathers but turned off by the ugliness of their behavior. It was an apt symbol for her fiction and the birds featured prominently on several of her books' covers.

Leonard Thompson was the first human to receive an insulin injection for diabetes

In January 1922, the 14-year-old was the first person to receive an insulin injection to treat diabetes, just months after insulin was isolated in dogs and used to treat their induced diabetes. Thompson had an allergic response to an apparent impurity in the injection, but his second dose, 12 days later, was a success.

An architect explores da Vinci's quest to fly

This article follows Leonardo da Vinci's quest for human air flight, which he pursued in the late 1400s. Written by an architect, this piece details da Vinci's venture into the field of aviation, starting with his attempt to understand the flight...

Animal wines: Wine bottles with pigs on the label had the lowest median prices at $23.22

If you’ve ever spent too much time staring at a shelf in a wine store, you might have noticed something similar: animals, specifically, cats, pigs, or birds on the labels. So, what do these wines have in common? This interactive tool attempts to figure out what wines that include the same animal have in common.

The Wright Flyer was an engineering breakthrough, and modern aircraft still use the same principles of flight.

'Unfortunately, many people do not consider fun an important item on their daily agenda. For me, that was always a high priority in whatever I was doing.'

-Chuck Yeager, the first pilot to break the sound barrier (1923-2020)

Charles Dickens' pet raven likely inspired Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Raven.'

Hear how the Piggly Wiggly grocery store founder attempted to squeeze short sellers by cornering the grocery store's stock

Founded in 1916 in Memphis, TN by Clarence Saunders, Piggly Wiggly was the first modern grocery store with aisles for customers to shop for themselves. In 1922, investors placed short positions, sensing that the stock may be overvalued after several Piggly Wiggly franchises in the Northeast went bankrupt. Saunders attempted to squeeze short sellers by taking out $10M and buying up nearly 99% of all available Piggly Wiggly stock. Ultimately, the fiasco ended with Piggly Wiggly's stock being permanently banned from the New York Stock Exchange and Saunders leaving Piggly Wiggly and filing for bankruptcy.

The first successful IVF pregnancy was in the United Kingdom in 1978

Gynecologist Patrick Steptoe and his collaborator Robert Edwards, a biologist, attempted to fertilize a human egg cell in a petri dish 101 times before finally succeeding. This resulted in the birth of Louise Brown—at the time referred to as a "test tube" baby—in 1978, who was born into the spotlight.

The annual 'turkey pardon' officially began in 1989

President George HW Bush oversaw the first official pardon, but the tradition began years before that. This short video from PBS News explores the history of presidential pardons for the lucky birds. There’s no “fowl” language, but there are plenty of puns!

Watch a pro butcher turn half a pig into eight common meals

The variety of food derived from a pig is enormous—from the common hot dog to delicate capicola. Watch butcher John Ratliff transform this meat into the basis of some of the most well-known meals.

Pigeons were thought to be the cause of what would be evidence of the Big Bang

In 1964, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson accidentally detected the CMB while trying to eliminate persistent static from their radio antenna. The pair initially blamed the signal on pigeon droppings inside their antenna—cleaning it didn't help, but it did win them a Nobel Prize.

'Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul—and sings the tunes without the words—and never stops at all.'

- Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Frisbees earned their name from a pie company that made tins that college students used to throw around campus.

Articulating weird memes

Some memes eschew established formats and references, creating new variants that resonate with scrollers through strange meta-jokes or compositions. This episode of this podcast, geared toward blind netizens, dives into some of the weird memes being shared online, such as one in which a pigeon sitting on a shoddy excuse for a nest, single egg forgotten, is meant to inspire comfort in those whose efforts have fallen short.

The real James Bond wasn't a spy—he was a birdwatcher

Ian Fleming needed a name for his spy protagonist and found it in a book about birds he was reading written by ornithologist James Bond. As Fleming's book series grew in popularity, the birdwatching Bond began to receive strange phone calls from fans looking for the fictional agent. This interview with writer Jim Wright explores that strange history, shedding light on more than a few Easter eggs in the Bond series.

A critic evaluates Orwell's lesser-known books

Orwell is primarily known for "Animal Farm" and "1984," but The Critic's Alexander Larman argues that Orwell's other titles—especially the 1936 novel "Keep the Aspidistra Flying"—are also worthy reads. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

See how pig heart valves have been placed in humans since 1965.

See the first dog ever treated with insulin—a peptide

Frederick Banting and his graduate student Charles Best were the first to isolate the peptide insulin from dogs. They induced diabetes in the animals and then treated them with this peptide.