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The lives of great figures in history are full of inspiring and moving episodes. Young people especially can learn from these stories, gaining hope, courage, and even hints on how to live their own lives. Children everywhere benefit from reading about the lives of heroic achievers, and indeed, these stories are an important part of their education and growth.

Shogakukan Biographical Comics is a series of biographies of inspirational historical figures in an easy-to-read manga format. These books are as fun to read as any manga, but the stories they tell are based entirely on historical fact. Every volume includes a map and a historical timeline, rounding out a package that teaches even as it entertains.

Wilbur and Orville Wright started out repairing bicycles in a small Midwestern American city and went on to complete the first piloted, self-propelled flight in history. Since that fateful day in 1903, aviation and aerospace technology has developed by leaps and bounds. Now, in the twenty-first century, we are close to the day when people will travel freely between the earth and outer space. But we should never forget that the invention of the airplane began with two brothers tinkering in their bicycle shop. The Wright brothers achieved their vision of human flight through hard work, patience, and an unwavering belief in themselves and their dreams.

“The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who, in their grueling travels across trackless lands in prehistoric times, looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space, at full speed, above all obstacles, on the infinite highway of the air." —Orville Wright