According to Greek legend, Daedalus, the Athenian inventor, was the first man to fly. He and his son, Icarus, had been imprisoned on the island of Crete by King Minos. In order to escape, Daedalus shaped wings of wax into which he stuck bird feathers.
During their flight, Icarus flew too high and the sun melted the wax. He was drowned in the sea, and that body of water is still called the Icarian Sea in honor of the first man to lose his life in flying. The father is supposed to have continued his flight and reached Sicily, several hundred miles away.
There is also an English legend of King Bladud who, during his reign in the ninth century B.C., used wings to fly. But his flight was short-lived and he fell to his death.
The dream of flying continued, but in all the legends, the flier rose like a bird only to fall like a stone. It was more than twenty-six hundred years after King Bladud's flight that men flew up into the air and returned to earth safely.
