Timeline of transportation technology

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Middle Ages

• 800 – The streets of Baghdad are paved with tar.
• Late 10th century – Kamal invented in Arab world.
• 1044 – Compass invented in China
• 13th century (or before) – Rocket invented in Afghanistan.verifiable
• 1350 – Compass dial invented by Ibn al-Shatir.
• 15th century - Jan Žižka built the precursor to the motorised tank - armoured wagons equipped with cannons.
• Late 16th century - European sailing ships become advanced enough to reliably cross oceans.

17th century

• 1620 – Cornelius Drebbel builds the world's first known submarine, which is propelled by oars (although there are earlier ideas for and depictions of submarines).
• 1662 – Blaise Pascal invents a horse-drawn public bus which has a regular route, schedule, and fare system
• 1672 – Ferdinand Verbiest have built what may have been the first steam-powered car^[1][2]

18th century

• 1716 - Swedish scientist, Emanuel Swedenborg, creates the first concept of a hovering vehicle.^[3]
• 1740 – Jacques de Vaucanson debuted his clockwork powered carriage
• 1769 – Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot demonstrates his fardier à vapeur, an experimental steam-driven artillery tractor
• 1776 – First submarine to be propelled by screws, and the first military submarine to attempt an attack on a ship, Turtle, is built by David Bushnell. The attack fails to sink the HMS Eagle.
• 1783 – Joseph Montgolfier and Étienne Montgolfier launch the first hot air balloons
• 1783 – Jacques Charles and Les Frères Robert (Anne-Jean Robert and Nicolas-Louis Robert) launch the first Hydrogen balloon
• 1784 – William Murdoch built a working model of a steam carriage in Redruth, England^[4]

19th century

• 1801 – Richard Trevithick ran a full-sized steam 'road locomotive' on the road in Camborne, England^[4]
• 1803 – Richard Trevithick built his 10-seater London Steam Carriage^[4]
• 1803 – William Symington's Charlotte Dundas, generally considered to be the world's first practical steamboat, makes her first voyage.
• 1804 – Richard Trevithick built a prototype steam-powered railway locomotive and it ran on the Pen-y-Darren Line near Merthyr Tydfil Wales
• 1804 – Oliver Evans (claimed to have) demonstrated a steam-powered amphibious vehicle.
• 1807 – Robert Fulton's North River Steamboat, the world's first commercially successful steamboat, makes her maiden voyage.
• 1807 – Nicéphore Niépce installed his Pyréolophore internal combustion engine in a boat and powered up the river Saone in France.
• 1807 – Isaac de Rivas made a hydrogen gas powered internal combustion engine and mounted it on a vehicle.
• 1812 - First commercially successful self-propelled engine on Land was Mathew Murray's Salamanca on Middleton-Leeds Railway using toothed wheels and rail
• 1812 - Timothy Hackworth's "Puffing Billy" ran on smooth Cast Iron Rails at Wylam Colliery near Newcastle
• 1814 – George Stephenson built the first practical steam-powered railway locomotive "Blutcher" at Killingworth Colliery.^[5]
• 1816 – The most likely originator of the bicycle is the German, Baron Karl von Drais, who rode his 1816 machine while collecting taxes from his tenants.
• 1819 – SS Savannah, the first vessel to cross the Atlantic Ocean partly under steam power, arrives at Liverpool, England from Savannah, Georgia.
• 1822 - Stevenson built a locomotive and designed the railway for Hetton Colliery which is first railway not to use any horse-traction but it did have several rope hauled sections.
• 1822 - First Meeting of Liverpool Manchester Railway Company Permanent Committee.^[6]
• 1825 Stevenson's Locomotion runs on Stockton Darlington railway which opens as first Public railway and uses horses and self-propelled steam engines and stationary engines with ropes along a single track. No stations and no timetables as anyone could hire the track to use their own vehicle on it.^[7]
• 1825 - Sir Goldsworthy Gurney invented a series of steam-powered passenger carriages and by 1829 completed the 120-mile journey from London to Bath, Somerset and back.
• 1826 - Bill passed for Liverpool Manchester railway at second attempt and George Stevenson commences work on 35 mile twin track line permitting simultaneous travel in both directions between the 2 towns. Means of traction not specified to reduce opposition.^[8]
• 1828 - Stevenson's "Lancashire Witch" runs on Bolton Leigh line - a public goods line to connect Leeds Liverpool canal and Manchester Bury and Bolton canal. Railway has rope hauled and self-propelled steam engines and single track.^[9]
• 1829 - Rainhill Trials to find best self-propelled engine for Liverpool Manchester line are won by Robert Stephenson's Rocket proving there is no need for horse traction or static engines on the main line.^[10] Rocket becomes basic formula for all future steam engines with boiler tubes, blast pipe, and the use of coal rather than coke.
• 1830 - Liverpool and Manchester Railway opens. First public transport system without animal traction, first public line with no rope hauled sections for main journey, first twin track, first railway between 2 large towns, first timetabled trains, first railway stations, first train faster than a mail coach, first tunnels under streets, first proper modern railway which formed the template for all subsequent railways.^[11]
• 1838 – Isambard Kingdom Brunel's SS Great Western, the first purpose-built transatlantic steamship, inaugurates the first regular transatlantic steamship service.
• 1852 – Elisha Otis invents the safety elevator.
• 1853 – Sir George Cayley built and demonstrated the first heavier-than-air aircraft (a glider)
• 1862 – Étienne Lenoir made a gasoline engine automobile
• 1863 - London's Metropolitan Railway opened to the public as the world's first underground railway
• 1867 - first modern motorcycle was invented
• 1868 – George Westinghouse invented the compressed-air brake for railway trains.
• 1868 – Louis-Guillaume Perreaux's steam velocipede, a steam engine attached to a Michaux velocipede.^[12]
• 1880 – Werner von Siemens builds first electric elevator.
• 1883 - Karl Benz invents the first car powered by an internal combustion engine, he called it the Benz Patent Motorwagen.
• 1894 – Hildebrand & Wolfmüller became the first motorcycle available to the public for purchase.
• 1896 – Jesse W. Reno builds first escalator at Coney Island, and then reinstalls it on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge.
• 1897 – Charles Parsons' Turbinia, the first vessel to be powered by a steam turbine, makes her debut.
• 1897 – The most likely first electric bicycle was built in 1897 by Hosea W. Libbey.^[13]
• 1899 - Ferdinand von Zeppelin builds the first successful airship ^[14]

20th century

• 1900 – Ferdinand von Zeppelin launches the first successful airship.^[14]
• 1903
  • Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright fly the first motor-driven airplane.
  • Diesel engine tested in a canal boat by Rudolph Diesel, Adrian Bochet and Frederic Dyckhoff.
• 1908 – Henry Ford develops the assembly line method of automobile manufacturing with the introduction of the Ford Model T.
• 1911 – Selandia launched, the first ocean-going, diesel engine-driven ship.
• 1915
  • The Luftkissengleitboot Hovercraft, the first hovering vehicle was created by Dagobert Müller. It could only travel on water.
  • A British commission was tasked with creating a vehicle able to cross a 4 ft wide trench - the tank.^[15]
• 1916 - The first tank prototype, nicknamed "mother", was created by Britain during World War 1.^[16]
• 1926 – Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket.
• 1935 – First flight of the DC-3, one of the most significant transport aircraft in the history of aviation^[17]
• 1939 - First jet engine powered aircraft, the Heinkel He 178, takes flight.
• 1942 – V2 rocket covers a distance of 200 kilometres (120 mi).
• 1947 – Chuck Yeager in the Bell X1 completes the first supersonic manned flight.
• 1955 – The first nuclear-powered vessel, the USS Nautilus, a submarine, is launched.
• 1957
  • Sputnik 1, the first man-made satellite to be launched into orbit.
  • Gateway City, the world’s first purpose-built container ship, enters service.
  • First flight of the Boeing 707, the first commercially successful jet airliner.
• 1961 – Vostok 1, the first manned space mission, designed by Sergey Korolyov and Kerim Kerimov, makes two orbits around the Earth
• 1969
  • First flight of the Boeing 747, the first commercial widebody airliner.
  • NASA rocket technology, spurred on by the US/Russia Space Race, makes the first manned Moon landing a reality.
• 1971 – Salyut 1, the first space station, launched by Kerim Kerimov.
• 1975 - Morgantown PRT, the first Personal Rapid Transit system to be installed.
• 1976 – Concorde makes the world's first commercial passenger-carrying supersonic flight.
• 1981 – First flight of the space shuttle.
• 1994 - The Channel Tunnel opens.
• 1997 - The first Maglev train prototypes are tested in Japan.

21st century

• 2002 - the Segway PT self-balancing personal transport was launched by inventor Dean Kamen
• 2004 – the first commercial high speed Maglev train starts operation between Shanghai and its airport.
• 2010 - Ultra PRT, the first modern commercial Personal Rapid Transit system to be installed. Started operations at Heathrow Airport.

See also

• Maritime timeline
• Timeline of automobiles

Notes