Editing Wan Hu (section)

==="Wang Tu"===
A precursor of the story of Wan Hu appeared in an article by [[John Elfreth Watkins]], published in the 2 October 1909 issue of ''[[Scientific American]]'', which used the name Wang Tu instead of Wan Hu:
<blockquote>"Tradition asserts that the first to sacrifice himself to the problem of flying was Wang Tu, a Chinese [[Mandarin (bureaucrat)|mandarin]] of about 2,000 years B.C. Who, having had constructed a pair of large, parallel and horizontal kites, seated himself in a chair fixed between them while forty-seven attendants each with a candle ignited forty-seven rockets placed beneath the apparatus. But the rocket under the chair exploded, burning the mandarin and so angered the Emperor that he ordered a severe paddling for Wang."<ref name="watkins">Watkins, John Elfreth (1909-10-02). The Modern Icarus. Scientific American, Vol 101 No 13, 2 October 1909, p 243. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/scientific-american-1909-10-02.</ref></blockquote>

The possibly farcical text proceeds to describe several other fictional stories of ancient aviators.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Watkins|first1=J|title=The Modern Icarus|journal=Scientific American|date=2 October 1909|volume=101|issue=14|pages=243–245|doi=10.1038/scientificamerican10021909-243|url=https://zenodo.org/record/2498588}}</ref> A date of 2000 BCE pre-dates the emergence of writing in China by three or four centuries and pre-dates the invention of [[gunpowder]]-based rockets in China by about 3,000 years.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Chinese Inventions |url=https://asiasociety.org/education/chinese-inventions |access-date=2023-01-10 |website=Asia Society |language=en}}</ref>