A partial listing of important events in the life of Glenn H. Curtiss.
|
Year
|
Date
|
Event
|
1878
|
May 21
|
Glenn Hammond Curtiss is born in Hammondsport, New York, to Frank Richmond
Curtiss and Lua (Andrews) Curtiss. |
1898
|
March 7 |
Curtiss marries Lena Pearl Neff, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Guy L. Neff, in
Hammondsport. |
1900
|
|
Curtiss opens a bicycle repair shop in Hammondsport,
begins selling his own brand of bicycle, the Hercules.
|
1901
|
March |
Curtiss' first child, Carlton, is born with a
congenital heart defect. He lived for 11 months.
|
1901
|
|
Curtiss builds his first motorcycle, mounting a
mail-order engine on one of his Hercules bicycles. By 1902 he begins
building lightweight, high horsepower engines of his own design. He sells
motorcycles and engines under the Hercules name.
|
1903
|
May 30 |
Curtiss sets a world speed record by riding a mile in
56.25 seconds (64 MPH) on one of his Hercules motorcycles during a
championship tournament in Yonkers, NY, sponsored by the National Cycle
Association. He would set several more speed records in the following few
years.
|
1904
|
Early summer |
Curtiss unwittingly sells his first engine for aviation use to Thomas
Scott Baldwin, who would mount it on a hydrogen-filled dirigible |
1905
|
October 19 |
Curtiss and four other directors incorporate the G.
H. Curtiss Manufacturing Company, Inc.
|
1906
|
May 16 |
Curtiss writes the Wright brothers to suggest they purchase one of his
motors for their aircraft. Curtiss meets the Wrights three months later.
They did not buy an engine. |
1907
|
January
|
Curtiss earns the title, "fastest man in the world"
by riding a large, custom-made motorcycle, with an eight-cylinder engine,
at 136.3 MPH in Ormond Beach, Florida. No human being travels faster until
1911, when a race car made 141.7 MPH.
|
1907
|
June 28
|
Curtiss flies for the first time, aboard a Baldwin
dirigible in Hammondsport.
|
1907
|
October 1
|
Curtiss joins Alexander Graham Bell and others in the
founding of the Aerial
Experiment Association in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The association appointed
Curtiss "director of experiments."
|
1907
|
December 30
|
Curtiss writes the Wright brothers again, offering to
give them one of his engines for their aircraft. They decline.
|
1908
|
May 21
|
Curtiss makes his first airplane flight, in "White
Wing."
|
|
July 4
|
Curtiss wins first leg of three-legged “Scientific American” trophy by
making first public flight of one kilometer or more, in “June Bug.”
|
|
|
November
|
Curtiss tests “Loon” (“Junebug” with floats)
does not rise from water.
|
1909
|
August 29
|
Curtiss flies at 47 miles per hour to win Gordon
Bennet speed trophy at Rheims, France .
|
1910
|
January 16
|
John H. Whitney meets Curtiss at Los Angeles Air
Meet, receives job offer.
|
|
|
March
|
Whitney reports for work at air show in Memphis,
later becomes official photographer and Curtiss' personal secretary.
|
|
|
May
|
Curtiss tests “canoe machine,” does not rise from
water
|
|
|
May 29
|
Curtiss flies from Albany to New York City in the
“Hudson Flyer.”
|
|
|
November 14
|
First take-off from a
ship.
|
|
|
December
|
Curtiss arrives on North Island
|
1911
|
January 18
|
First landing on a ship
|
|
|
January 26
|
Curtiss hydroplane rises from water
|
|
|
February 17
|
First hydroplane flight to a ship
|
|
|
February 23
|
Curtiss flies world’s first amphibian aircraft.
|
|
|
May
|
Curtiss returns to Hammondsport, NY, rents part of
North Island to the Army as a pilot training base
|
|
|
May 8
|
Navy orders two Curtiss hydroplanes
|
1916
|
|
Curtiss builds second “canoe machine,” rises from
water.
|
1920
|
|
Curtiss leaves the aviation business, moves to Florida.
|
1930
|
May
|
Curtiss makes his last flight as a pilot, in a Curtiss Condor transport
plane, from Albany to New York City.
|
|
|
July 23
|
Curtiss dies in Buffalo, New York, from complications after appendix
surgery.
|
