government to finally step in, and President Theodore Roosevelt warned of dire consequences if the Americans were killed. What ensued was one of the most daring attempts at regime change ever seen, but the insurgents were eventually put to flight by the Salvodoran army.įigueroa put a price on John Moisant’s head and fixed a date for the execution of his brothers. State Department refusing to intercede on his brothers’ behalf, John Moisant resolved to free them of his own accord, and, aided by neighboring Nicaragua, a bitter enemy of El Salvador, he acquired a gunboat and 300 soldiers. In 1907 the two elder brothers were arrested on charges of plotting to overthrow the country’s tyrannical president, Fernando Figueroa-charges cooked up after the Moisants refused to give bribes to the corrupt regime. After the death of their parents the siblings moved to El Salvador and bought a coffee plantation. John Moisant was born in Chicago in 1875, one of eight children and the youngest of four brothers. “Impossible,” cried the Wrights, who overlooked the fact that Moisant had always been a revolutionary. His story appeared in comic books, his profile ran in women’s magazines, and scientific journals reported on his construction of an aluminum airplane, which had never been built. And who, you might wonder, was Moisant?Ī century ago John Bevins Moisant was every bit as famous as Glenn Curtiss and the Wright boys-maybe more so, because the small, balding American was considered the world’s most daring aviator. Trivia question: Why is the three-letter identifier for Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport “MSY” instead of “NOI” or something equally intuitive? No? It stands for Moisant Stock Yards, the name of the land upon which the airport was constructed.
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