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1011 BCE
Walking
The use of Polaris, the pole star, as a navigational aid is credited to the Phoenicians (the position of the pole star in the sky is so close to the northern end of the axis on which the earth rotates that it appears static throughout each night and is a reliable indication of due north).
Peope would walk to their destinations walking using Polaris -
310 BCE
Boats and Ships
People now use boats and ships.
Pytheas, an explorer from the Greek city of Massilia (now Marseilles), voyages past Gibraltar and turns north up the European coast. Off Brittany he veers west to visit Cornwall, where he describes the trade in tin. He then sails up the west coast of Britain and continues beyond it for six days to reach a land which he calls Thule.
As a result of this report Thule (presumably Norway) becomes for all Greek and Roman geographers the most northerly place in the world -
138 BCE
Rickshaw
On land in Asian countries people used Rickshaws The purpose of the journey of Zhang Qian is political (sent by the emperor Wudi to find allies in the west against the marauding Xiongnu), but his discoveries give him the status of an explorer. In 138 BC he sets off through the Jade Gate at the western end of the Great Wall. -
Oct 21, 1000
Cattle Pull
People relied on cattle and animals to pull them and their loads
By the 1st century the world's great central land mass, Eurasia, is to a considerable extent familiar to its best informed inhabitants. The Roman empire provides a pool of shared knowledge covering the entire Mediterranean world and most of Europe. The Silk Road establishes a living link between the Mediterranean and the Pacific. -
Oct 21, 1402
Bigger Ships: 1402-1460
European maritime adventures: People developed bigger ships to hold more cargo and supplies.
Until the end of the Middle Ages the most westerly region known to Europeans is the Canary Islands. The islands are visited in about 40 BC by seafarers from Mauretania, a client kingdom of Rome in northwest Africa. An account of this expedition is known in the next century to Pliny the Elder. He explains that the islands are called Canaria because they have so many large dogs (canes). -
Period: Oct 21, 1402 to
Ships, Cattle, Wagons
The main means of transportation for people durng a large time period was I fact ships, boats, cattle, and wagons. -
Period: to
Bicycle
The earliest bicycle was a wooden scooter-like contraption called a celerifere; it was invented about 1790 by Comte Mede de Sivrac of France.
Kirkpatrick MacMillan (1812-1878), a blacksmith from Dumfriesshire, Scotland, invented the first bicycle with foot pedals in the 1830 to 1840's, but he never patented it and his idea did not catch on locally. -
Period: to
Bicycles continued
Pierre and Ernest Michaux, invented an improved bicycle in the 1860's. Many early bicycles had huge front wheels - it was thought that the bigger the wheel, the faster you could go.
Early tires were wooden - metal tires were an improvement, and solid rubber tires were added later. A chain with sprockets was added to the bicycle in the 1880's; this was called the "safety bicycle." Air-filled tires were also added in the 1880's. The derailleur gear system was added in the 1970's. -
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Wright Brothers
Wright Brothers Plane -
Period: to
Airplanes
The Wright Brothers took their first flight in KittyHawk, NC in 1903
Airplanes have progressed and only improved since that windy day I North Carolina. -
Today's Plane
The Wright Brothers could not imagine what their invention would become. -
Today's Car
Henry Ford's legacy still lives on with the Ford Motor Company still going strong.
