History of Transportation

Earliest way of Transportation

60,000 BCE

The earliest known way of transportation that people used given by Mother Nature was boats.

Early Boats

7600 BCE

In any case, the earliest known boats were simple logboats, also referred to as dugouts.

Early Horse Transportation

4000 BCE

Next, came horses. While it’s difficult to pinpoint when humans first began domesticating them as a means of getting around or to transport goods, experts generally go by the emergence of certain biological and cultural markers that indicate when such practices started to take place.

New invention

3500 BCE

Roughly around that period, someone finally invented the wheel. The archaeological record shows that the first wheeled vehicles

First Submarine

1620

The first navigable submarine was invented in 1620 by Dutchman Cornelis Drebbel. Built for the English Royal Navy, Drebbel’s submarine could stay submerged for up to three hours and was propelled by oars.

Steamed Machines

1769

Boats were among the first to take advantage of steam-generated power

First automobile

1769

another Frenchman named Nicolas Joseph Cugnot attempted to adapt steam engine technology to a road vehicle and the result was the invention of the first automobile.

First Steam Boat

1783

A French inventor by the name of Claude de Jouffroy built the Pyroscaphe, the world’s first steamship.

A Locomotive

1801

In 1801, British inventor Richard Trevithick unveiled the world’s first road locomotive, called the “Puffing Devil,” and used it to give six passengers a ride to a nearby village.

Mass Transport

1807

While other inventors tried to make steamships that were practical enough for mass transport, it was American Robert Fulton who furthered the technology to where it was commercially viable. In 1807, the Clermont completed a 150-mile trip from New York City to Albany that took 32 hours, with the average speed clocking in at about five miles per hour. Within a few years, Fulton and company would offer regular and freight service between New Orleans, Louisiana, and Natchez, Mississippi.

Locomotive 2.0

1814

So in 1814, Stephenson designed the Blücher, an eight wagon locomotive capable of hauling 30 tons of coal uphill at a speed of four miles per hour.

"Father of Railways"

1824

By 1824, Stephenson improved the efficiency on his locomotive designs to where he was commissioned by the Stockton and Darlington Railway to build the first steam locomotive to carry passengers on a public rail line, the aptly named Locomotion No. 1. Six years later, he opened the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the first public inter-city railway line serviced by steam locomotives.

New thing called an Engine

1858

It wasn’t until 1858 that Jean Joseph Étienne Lenoir of Belgium invented the internal combustion engine.

First (steamed powered) Bicycle

1867

Developed in 1867, the two-wheeled steam-powered bicycle is considered by many historians to be the world’s first motorcycle.

Helicopter

1907

And on November 13, 1907, his Cornu helicopter, made of little more than some tubing, an engine, and rotary wings, achieved a lift height of about one foot while staying airborne for about 20 seconds. With that, Cornu would lay claim to having piloted the first helicopter flight.