Timeline of transportation technology

Middle Ages

• 800 – The streets of Baghdad are paved with tar.
• Late 10th century – Kamal invented in India.
• 1044 – Compass invented in China
• 13th century (or before) – Rocket invented in Afghanistan.
• 1350 – Compass dial invented by Ibn al-Shatir.
• 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

18th century

• 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

19th century

• 1801 – Richard Trevithick ran a full-sized steam 'road locomotive' on the road in Camborne, England
• 1803 – Richard Trevithick built his 10-seater London Steam Carriage
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 1829 - Rainhill Trials to find best self-propelled engine for Liverpool Manchester line are won by Robert Stevenson's Rocket proving there is no need for horse traction or static engines on the main line. Rocket becomes basic formula for all future steam engines with boiler tubes, blast pipe, and the use of coal rather than coke.
• 1830 - Liverpool 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.
• 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
• 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.
• 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.
• 1899 - Ferdinand von Zeppelin builds the first successful airship

20th century

• 1900 – Ferdinand von Zeppelin launches the first successful airship.
• 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.
• 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
• 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.
  • First manned Moon landing.
• 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.

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