Top 10 great transport breakthroughs

TEN GREAT TRANSPORT BREAKTHROUGHS

01

Wheel c 4500BC
It’s difficult to pinpoint when the wheel was invented, but the earliest recorded evidence of their use dates back to the Sumerians of Mesopotamia. The wheel enabled the people of this ancient civilisation to build carts with which to haul bigger loads than could be carried on their backs.


02
sailboat c 4000BC the nile, tigris and euphrates rivers were important trade routes for the egyptians and mesopotamians. Artefacts from those civilisations show sailboats were used to travel and to transport goods between the settlements along them.


03
Suspension c 3100bc
early roads were little more than rocky tracks, making journeys uncomfortable for any passengers and potentially damaging for cargo. By hanging a loadbearing platform or cabin from a frame built upon a cart’s chassis, the ancient egyptians came up with a method of ensuring a smoother ride.


04
chain drive c300bc
the mechanism that – by transmitting drive from one place to another – would dramatically alter bicycle design approximately 2,000 years later first appeared in ancient Greece. the polybolos, an automatic crossbow, used a chain drive to load bolts for rapid and repeated fire.


05
Rockets c 1250
long before some bright spark thought of using rockets to launch a men and machines into space, they were being used as weapons in battle. After they invented gunpowder, chinese chemists used it to fire incendiary projectiles at their enemies.


06
steam locomotion 1784
steam engines were the driving force behind the industrial revolution, but the idea for using boiling water as a power source dates back long before the 18th century. However, it wasn’t until 1784 that scottish inventor William murdoch unveiled a prototype of a steam-powered road vehicle. trains and ships would follow soon after.


07
pneumatic tyre 1845
A ‘tier’ was the name given to the band of steel used to tie the spokes on wooden wheels together to form the round structure. But steel isn’t the best material for producing traction or a comfortable ride so people began looking for an alternative, which arrived in the form of vulcanised rubber. scotsman robert William thomson was the first to patent the idea of attaching a rubber tyre to a wheel and filling it with air.


08
Internal combustion engine 1879
the roots of the internal combustion engine date back centuries. crank and rod mechanisms appear in roman times and gunpowder was used to drive the pistons of a water pump in the 17th century. However, it was Germany’s nikolaus otto who first built and patented an internal combustion engine that could be incorporated into an automobile.


09
Powered flight 1903
man had been taking to the skies using various forms of kites, gliders and balloons for a long time before orville and Wilbur Wright showed up. But they were the first to successfully make a powered, controlled and sustained flight.


10
Jet engine 1930
once human flight had been achieved, engineers set about finding ways to fly faster, further and higher. the jet engine made doing all of those things possible. the idea behind it dates back to the first century AD, but it wasn’t until 1930 that the first patent was filed for one designed to power an aircraft.