Wright Brothers were actually not the first flyers.
They were just ruthless business people who suppressed reporting of other earlier flights (e.g. Whitehead) and sued the heck out of others with aeronautical inventions prior to theirs (e.g. Curtis), and their estate made a then-secret deal with the Smithsonian to never note anything about prior flights in exchange for letting the Smithsonian have the Wright flyer on display.
The 1903 Wrights flights at Kitty Hawk were launched from a rail, landed downhill from the takeoff location, didn’t get very high, were out of control (esp could not be turned under control), and ‘landed’ with such force that after two very short ‘flights’ and one a little longer (the one erroneously claimed to be powered, controlled, ‘first flight’) that damaged the craft so it couldn’t fly again for several months.
On August 14, 1901 Gustav Whitehead of Fairfield, CT, flying farther and higher and for more time than the Wrights. Whitehead’s plane had two motors, one for the wheels that allowed his craft to takeoff and land on an open field. Whitehead’s craft also had warping wings that enabled controlled turns several years before the Wrights figured that one out.
The August 1901 Whitehead flight took off from level ground, was under control the whole time, landed without damage to the craft.
The Wrights are known to have visited the naive and generous Whitehead between 1901 and 1903 and Whitehead enthusiastically shared engine designs and some wing concepts with the Wrights.