PBS Series Looks at The Airplane, An Idea That Changed the World

The second episode of a new PBS series, "Breakthrough: The Ideas That Changed the World," premieres tomorrow night April 24 with "Airplane," a look at the people who inspired the Wright Brothers to create the first practical aircraft.

The journey to the first successful flight is a story full of passion, danger and death, and this episode showcases the revolutionaries and visionaries who made it possible to leave the ground. Tomorrow's episode looks at Abba Ibn Firnas, the Moorish/Islamic scholar and the world's first pilot; Leonardo da Vinci; British inventor Sir George Cayley; French inventor and engineer Alphonse Penaud; German aviation pioneer Otto Lilienthal; famed pilot Wiley Post; and RAF officer and inventor, Frank Whittle, creator of the first jet engine.

Told through six iconic objects that modern people take for granted, the six-part Breakthrough series shows how science, invention and technology built on one another to change everything. The episode begins at 10 p.m. EST, but be sure to check your local PBS show listings.