Which came first, the aeroplane or the Ford Motor Company?

Both arrived in 1903. The Wright Flyer made four powered flights at Kitty Hawk. Ford Motor Company was incorporated in Detroit.

Side by side

the aeroplane

The first flight lasted 12 seconds and covered 36 metres — less than the wingspan of a Boeing 747. The Wrights' real contribution was not the engine but three-axis control, which they worked out with a wind tunnel of their own design after finding the published lift tables wrong. Sixty-six years separate that flight from the Moon landing, well within a single lifetime.

the Ford Motor Company

Ford was incorporated in June 1903, fourteen years after Nintendo and six months before the Wright brothers flew. The Model T followed in 1908 and the moving assembly line in 1913, which cut the time to build a car from twelve hours to about ninety minutes. Ford was Henry Ford's third attempt at a car company; the first two failed.