1903 in aviation

First piloted powered flight,

Possibly Richard Pearse at upper Waitohi, in south Canterbury, New Zealand in March 1903.

Possibly the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in December 1903.

The ambiguity arises from the definition of flight. Richard Pearse travelled some distance in the air sitting in a motor powered contraption, landing on a hedge. However he himself always claimed that it did not count because he was not in control. The Wright Brothers made the first controlled powered flight some eight months later.