This is a timeline of transportation technology and technological developments in the culture of transportation.
20th millennium BC – rafts used on rivers.
7th millennium BC – Earliest known shoes.
6th millennium BC – Dugout canoes constructed.
4th millennium BC – The earliest vehicles may have been ox carts.
3500 BCE – Domestication of the horse and invention of the wheel in Ancient Near East
Toys excavated from the Indus Valley Civilisation (3010–1500 BC) include small carts.
3000 BCE – Austronesians construct catamarans and outriggers.
In the Mediterranean, galleys were developed about 3000 BC.
2nd millennium BC – Cart mentioned in literature, chariot and spoked wheel invented.
800 BC – Canal for transport constructed in Ancient China.
408 BC – Wheelbarrow referenced in Ancient Greece.
5th century – Horse collar invented in China.
6th century – Evidence of a horseshoe in the tomb of the Frankish King Childeric I, Tournai, Belgium.
Late 7th century – First suspension bridge, Maya Bridge at Yaxchilan
800 – The streets of Baghdad are paved with tar.
9th century – The sine quadrant, was invented by Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi in the 9th century at the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. The other types were the universal quadrant, the horary quadrant and the astrolabe quadrant.
10th century – sea-going junk ships built in China.
Late 10th century – Kamal invented in Arab world.
1044 – Compass invented in China.
13th century (or before) – Rocket missiles used in China. Rocket powered passenger vehicles did not appear until 1939.
1350 – Compass dial invented by Ibn al-Shatir.
1479–1519 – Da Vinci sketches pedalo.
1495–1504 – The oldest extant cable railway is probably the Reisszug, a private line providing goods access to Hohensalzburg Fortress at Salzburg in Austria. This line is generally described as the oldest funicular.
15th century – Jan Žižka built the precursor to the motorised tank, armoured wagons equipped with cannons.
1569 – Mercator 1569 world map published.
Late 16th century – European sailing ships become advanced enough to reliably cross oceans.
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Canal Mania was the period of intense canal building in England and Wales between the 1790s and 1810s, and the speculative frenzy that ensued in the early 1790s. The earliest canal building was undertaken as a local enterprise, usually by a merchant, manufacturer or mine owner needing to ship goods, such as the Bridgewater Canal, built by the Duke of Bridgewater to ship his coal from Worsley to Manchester. Despite the high cost of construction, the price of coal in Manchester fell by 50% shortly after it opened, and the financial success was attractive to investors.
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The bike boom or bicycle craze is any of several specific historic periods marked by increased bicycle enthusiasm, popularity, and sales. Prominent examples include 1819 and 1868, as well as the decades of the 1890s and 1970s - the latter especially in North America - and the 2010s in the United Kingdom. History of the bicycle#1817 to 1819: the draisine or velocipede The first period which may be called a bicycle craze actually refers to a precursor of the bicycle which was propelled by being pushed along with the feet as the rider straddled the contraption, and had no pedals.