I just thought I would share this excerpt with you. It came from an article discussing how overly pessimistic most researchers are on the pace of new discoveries and the evolution of technology.

On October 9, 1903 two interesting things happened.

The New York Times wrote "Hence, if it requires, say, a thousand years to fit for easy flight a bird which started with rudimentary wings… the flying machine that will really fly might be evolved by the combined and continuous efforts of mathematicians and mechanicians in from one million to ten million years…"

On that same day in North Carolina, Orville Wright wrote in his diary.

"We unpacked rest of goods for new machine. We started assembly today."

On December 17th of that same year they made history.