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3500 BCE
Wheel cart
The wheel is the most important and simple mechanical invention of all time. This invention allows farmers to have carts in which they can easily bring their produce a few miles to market. -
1492
Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machine
When he began his study of birds in flight, Leonardo da Vinci realised that humans are too heavy. Because of this, they would not be strong enough to fly if they were only using wings attached to the arms. He envisaged that to achieve flight there would be a need to include levers, pedals and pulleys. On this basis, in about 1490 Leonardo da Vinci drew his up plans for a flying machine that would keep a man in the air by the beating of its wings. -
Hot-air balloon
In 1783 Étienne carried out an initial tethered attempt, which was successful and which he repeated a second time seven days before the demonstration in front of the king at Versailles. It was named Le Réveillon after Étienne's friend Jean-Baptiste Réveillon. The demonstration was held in front of Louis XVI and the royal family in the palace forecourt, which was packed with curious onlookers. As a precaution, it was decided to use animals for the flight. -
First steam-powered ship
In 1787 John Fitch sailed the first prototype steamboat down the Delaware River. But it was not until 1807 that Robert Fulton built and marketed the first steamboat in history. It is the British textile industry that first applied this key component to its factories. -
Stephenson’s Rocket
Stephenson's Rocket is an early steam locomotive of 0-2-2 wheel arrangement. It was built for and won the Rainhill Trials of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR), held in October 1829 to show that improved locomotives would be more efficient than stationary steam engines. Rocket was designed by Robert Stephenson in 1829, and built at the Forth Street Works of his company in Newcastle upon Tyne. -
Carl Benz’s first car
The Benz Patent-Motorwagen ("patent motorcar"), built in 1885 by the German Carl Benz, is widely regarded as the world's first production and the first practical automobile; that is, a self-propelled vehicle for carrying people. It was patented and unveiled in 1886. The original cost of the vehicle in 1886 was 600 imperial German marks, approximately 150 US dollars. Karl's wife Bertha demonstrated its feasibility in a trip from Mannheim to Pforzheim in August 1888. -
First flight by the Wright brothers
On December 17, 1903, at Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville Wright completed the first powered flight of a heavier-than-air aircraft known as the Wright Flyer. The flight lasted just 12 seconds, traveled 120 feet, and reached a top speed of 6.8 miles. It is now on display in the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. The 1903 Wright airplane was an extremely strong yet flexible braced biplane structure. -
First space travel
Vostok 1 (Russian: Восток, East or Orient 1) was the first spaceflight of the Vostok programme and the first human spaceflight in history. The Vostok 3KA space capsule was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome on April 12, 1961, with Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin aboard, making him the first human to cross into outer space. -
Tesla Roadster
The Tesla Roadster is a battery electric vehicle (BEV) sports car, based on the Lotus Elise chassis, that was produced by the electric car firm Tesla Motors (now Tesla, Inc.) in California from 2008 to 2012. The Roadster was the first highway legal serial production all-electric car to use lithium-ion battery cells and the first production all-electric car to travel more than 320 kilometres (200 mi) per charge. -
Toyota Mirai, hydrogen car
The Toyota Mirai (Japanese: トヨタ・MIRAI, Hepburn: Toyota Mirai) (from Mirai (未来), Japanese for "future") is a mid-size hydrogen fuel cell vehicle (FCV) manufactured by Toyota, and represents one of the first FCV automobiles to be mass-produced and sold commercially.[4][5] The Mirai was unveiled at the November 2014 Los Angeles Auto Show.[6] As of December 2019, global sales totalled 10,250 Mirais.