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Carl Oskar Ursinus ( March 11 1877 - July 6 1952) was a pioneer of German aviation and is remembered mainly for his contributions to sailplane designs and the sport of gliding. He has been nicknamed the Rhönvater ("Rhön father") because he founded Germany’s first gliding club at the Wasserkuppe in the Rhön Mountains in 1920.

Ursinus was born in Weißenfels and attended Technical College in Mittweida . After graduation, he worked for Borsig on compressors for locomotives and spent some time working on mining machinery in Romania for the firm.

In 19081908 is a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). Events January-February January 1 A ball signifying New Year's Day drops in New York City's Times Square for the first time January 8 A train collision occurs in the Park Avenue T, back in Germany, Ursinus began to publish a magazine titled Flugsport (“Sports Flying”), since he had become fascinated by the new technology of flight. The magazine helped establish a network amongst Germany’s aviation enthusiasts and led to the organisation of Germany’s first international airshowAn airshow is an event at which aviators display their flying skills, normally to the public, but occasionally to invited guests, or employees and their families only. Some airshows are held for commercial motives, gaining income from onlookers or from co.

He was conscripted into the German Army in 1914Events January 4 77 seal hunters freeze to death on ice near Labrador January 5 Ford Motor Company announces an eight-hour workday and a minimum wage of $5 for a day's labor February 13 Copyright: In New York City the ASCAP (for American Society of Compos and requested a position in aircraft design. The request was approved and he was posted to Gothaer WaggonfabrikGothaer Waggonfabrik Gotha GWF) was a German manufacturer of rolling stock established in the late nineteenth century at Warnemunde. During the two world wars, the company expanded into aircraft building. In World War I, Gotha manufacturer a highly succes designing warplanes. The famous series of Gotha bomberA bomber is a military aircraft designed to attack ground targets, primarily by dropping bombs. For other uses of the word bomber see bomber (disambiguation). Strategic bombers are primarily designed for long-range strike missions against strategic targets used by the German air corps throughout World War IWorld War I (also known as the First World War , the Great War the War of the Nations and the "War to End All Wars") was a world conflict occurring from 1914 to 1918. No previous conflict had mobilized so many soldiers, or involved so many in the field of were all based on an Ursinus design of 1915Events January 12 The Rocky Mountain National Park is established by an act of Congress. January 12 United States House of Representatives rejects proposal to give women the right to vote. January 13 An earthquake (6. 8 in Richter scale) in Avezzano, Ital that was refined and manufactured as the Gotha G.I. Ursinus' real passion, however, was for seaplanes, and in 1916 he designed a revolutionary seaplane fighter with retractable floats that was unfortunately destroyed before testing was complete.

Following the war, the Treaty of Versailles prohibited Germany from building powered aircraft, and the attention of German aviators therefore turned to gliding. A plateau particularly suited to gliding, the Wasserkuppe, became a focal point for this activity, and in 1920, Ursinus organised a competition there. Over the next decade, this grew in importance to become an international event. Ursinus also constructed the first clubhouse on the Wasserkuppe in 1924. He was pursuing experiments in human-powered flight when the outbreak of World War II intervened.

Following the war, flying was once again forbidden in Germany, but Ursinus lived just long enough to see this prohibition lifted.

Today, he is regarded in Germany as the father of gliding, and Germany’s association for homebuilt aircraft, the Oskar Ursinus-Vereinigung ("Oskar Ursinus Association") bears his name.