Alfonso XIII (Alfonso León Fernando María Jaime Isidro Pascual Antonio de Borbón y Austria-Lorena; 17 May 1886 – 28 February 1941) was King of Spain from 1886 until 1931. His mother, Maria Christina of Austria, was appointed regent during his minority. In 1902, on attaining his 16th year, the King assumed control of the state.

Alfonso was born in Madrid, posthumously born son of Alfonso XII of Spain, and became King of Spain upon his birth. The French newspaper Le Figaro described the young king as "the happiest and best-loved of all the rulers of the earth".

When he came of age in 1902, the week of his majority was marked by festivities, bullfights, balls and receptions throughout Spain.

During his reign, Spain lost its last colonies in the Americas (Cuba and Puerto Rico) and the Philippines; fought and, after several setbacks, won a war in Morocco; witnessed the start of the Spanish Generation of 1927, and endured the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera. During the First World War, because of his family connections with both sides and the division of popular opinion, Spain remained neutral. The King ran an office for captives from the Royal Palace, which leveraged the Spanish diplomatic and military network abroad to intercede for thousands of prisoners-of-war, receiving and answering letters from Europe. However, he became gravely ill during the 1918 flu pandemic and, since Spain was neutral and thus under no wartime censorship restrictions, his illness and subsequent recovery were covered worldwide, giving the false impression (in the absence of real news from anywhere else) that Spain was the most-affected area. This ultimately led to the pandemic getting the nickname "the Spanish Flu."

Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg (christened Victoria Eugenie Julia Ena; 24 October 1887 – 15 April 1969) was queen consort of King Alfonso XIII of Spain. She was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom; also the first cousin of King George V of the United Kingdom, Queen Maud of Norway, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia, Queen Marie of Romania, Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany, Queen Louise of Sweden, and Queen Sophia of the Hellenes. The current King of Spain, Juan Carlos I, is her grandson.

Victoria Eugenie was born on 24 October 1887 at Balmoral Castle, in Scotland in the United Kingdom. Her father was Prince Henry of Battenberg, the fourth child and third son of Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine by his morganatic wife Countess Julia von Hauke, and her mother was Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom, the fifth daughter and youngest child of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

As Prince Henry was the product of a morganatic marriage, he took his style of Prince of Battenberg from his mother, who had been created Princess of Battenberg. As such Henry's daughter would normally have been born with the title Her Serene Highness Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg. However, on 4 December 1886, Queen Victoria had issued letters patent granting the title of "Highness" to all sons and daughters of Prince Henry and Princess Beatrice, thus the Princess was born Her Highness Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg. She was named for her two grandmothers and for her godmother, Empress Eugénie, the Spanish-born widow of the former Emperor of the French Napoleon III, who lived in exile in the UK. To her family, and the British general public, she was known by the last of her names, as Ena.

Queen Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India.

Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of King George III. Both the Duke of Kent and the King died in 1820, and Victoria was raised under close supervision by her German-born mother Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. She inherited the throne at the age of 18, after her father's three elder brothers had all died without surviving legitimate issue. The United Kingdom was already an established constitutional monarchy, in which the Sovereign held relatively few direct political powers. Privately, she attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments. Publicly, she became a national icon, and was identified with strict standards of personal morality.

She married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840. Their nine children and 26 of their 34 grandchildren who survived childhood married into royal and noble families across the continent, tying them together and earning her the nickname "the grandmother of Europe". After Albert's death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, republicanism temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign, her popularity recovered. Her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration.

The Wright brothers, Orville (August 19, 1871 – January 30, 1948) and Wilbur (April 16, 1867 – May 30, 1912), were two Americans credited with inventing and building the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight, on December 17, 1903. In the two years afterward, the brothers developed their flying machine into the first practical fixed-wing aircraft. Although not the first to build and fly experimental aircraft, the Wright brothers were the first to invent aircraft controls that made fixed-wing powered flight possible.

The brothers' fundamental breakthrough was their invention of three-axis control, which enabled the pilot to steer the aircraft effectively and to maintain its equilibrium. This method became standard and remains standard on fixed-wing aircraft of all kinds. From the beginning of their aeronautical work, the Wright brothers focused on developing a reliable method of pilot control as the key to solving "the flying problem". This approach differed significantly from other experimenters of the time who put more emphasis on developing powerful engines. Using a small homebuilt wind tunnel, the Wrights also collected more accurate data than any before, enabling them to design and build wings and propellers that were more efficient than any before. Their first U.S. patent, 821,393, did not claim invention of a flying machine, but rather, the invention of a system of aerodynamic control that manipulated a flying machine's surfaces.