Larry E. Tise became the Wilbur and Orville Wright Distinguished Professor of History at East Carolina University in 2000. He holds a PhD from the University of North Carolina and was a history administrator for many years, as well as a founder and president of the National Council on Public History. His research ranges from early explorers Thomas Harriot and Sir Walter Raleigh to the Wright brothers and the origins of flight. Michiel van Groesen is Professor of Maritime History at Leiden University, the Netherlands. He was previously Associate Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Amsterdam, as well as Queen Wilhelmina Visiting Professor at Columbia University in New York. Van Groesen specializes in European conceptions of the early modern Atlantic world and has been published widely on the subject.