Alberto Santos-Dumont (1873-1932) was a Brazilian inventor of dirigibles and airplanes. He was the first man to successfully combine the internal combustion engine with ballooning, and Europeans long believed him to be also the first to fly a heavier-than-air motorized plane.

Alberto Santos-Dumont the grandson of a French emigrant to Brazil, was born in the state of Minas Gerais. His father was an engineer, entrepreneur, and coffee planter, married to the daughter of a distinguished Brazilian family. In 1891 Alberto was sent to Paris to study mechanics and other sciences, more or less on his own. His father's death the next year left Alberto a fairly wealthy young man. After 4 years of desultory studies, the alternately dreamy and practical Brazilian began to devote all his money and energy to his inventions.

The idea of flight had long exerted a strange fascination for the boy; and as a wealthy and...