Not long after the Wright brothers took to their air in their pioneering heavier-and-air flight, two Slovenian brothers who, like the Wrights, owned a bicycle shop, decided to make aviation history of their own – albeit on a regional scale.

In 1908, Edvard and Josip Rusjan used the experience they had acquired by building bikes, and later airplane models, to open an airplane workshop near Gorizia, in modern-day Italy. They built Eda I, which was based on Edvard’s own designs. In November 25, 1909, Edvard first took to the sky. The aircraft was in the air for a mere 60 meters, but Rusjan made history: He was the first successful Slovenian aviator, the first in the wider Balkans region, and one of the first outside Western Europe. (For a time, historians even believed that his may also have been the first powered flight in Austria-Hungary, but it was eventually discovered that another aviator had beaten him by a few months.)

For a team with limited resources, the flight was a major achievement, and when Edvard made his second flight just four days later, he managed to fly ten times longer: a distance of 600 meters.

The Rusjan brothers built several more planes, including the very successful Eda V, and were seriously contemplating serial production of their aircraft. As part of a promotional effort, they embarked on a tour of the Balkans in early 1911. In Belgrade, Edvard overflew the city’s fortress, but a gust of wind broke off the wing of his plane. The aircraft crashed and Edvard Rusjan died on his way to the hospital. He was just 24.

More than 103 years later, Rusjan remains an icon of Slovenian technological prowess. Today, visitors flying into Slovenia in Maribor will land at the Edvard Rusjan Airport, whose landing in Ljubljana can marvel at full-sized model of the Eda V in the main terminal.