The amount of time
that people spend on travel has been consistent at 1,1 hours per person per day
in all societies.
Traffic jams of New
York, San Francisco and Paris are well known - beaten only by those in Seattle
where a driver annually spends 59 hours stuck in traffic.
Traffic jams are
nothing new. In 45 BC, Rome banned all vehicles from within the city - and in
other cities vehicles, including horses, were allowed only at night... because
of traffic jams.
Traffic lights were
used before the advent of the motorcar.
Thomas Cook, the
world's first travel agency in the world, was founded in 1850.
The Wright Brother
tested the first aeroplane in a wind tunnel before flying it.
Air-filled tyres
were used on bicycles before they were used on motorcars.
A dog was the first
in space and a sheep, a duck and a rooster the first to fly in a hot air
balloon. A dog was the first to parachute.
In ancient China,
the nose of a criminal who attacked travellers was cut off.
Electric cars were
introduced in 1896 and by the end of the century almost 50% of motorcars
worldwide were electric.
Yet, by 1905 80% of
cars were petrol driven and by 1920 the electric car was, well, almost history.
The shortest
scheduled airline flight is made between the island of Westray to Papa Westray
off Scotland. The flight lasts 2 minutes.
In 1913, the
Russian Airline became the first to introduce a toilet on board.
In 1620, Dutch
inventor Cornelius van Drebbel launched the world's first submarine in the
Thames. More
More than 60
million people annually visit France, a country of 60 million people.
The first
motorcycle speedway race was held in Maitland, Australia, in 1925.
Mercedes Benz cars
are named after Mercedes Jellinek. More
It is said that, in
1941 the Ford motor company produced an experimental automobile with a plastic
body composed of 70% cellulose fibres from hemp. The car body could absorb blows
10 times as great as steel without denting. The car was designed to run on hemp
fuel. Because of the ban on both hemp and alcohol, the car was never mass
produced.
There are more than
16,400 parking metres in Manhatten, New York.
New York cabs get
about 2000 tickets per month, handed out by about 2000 traffic attendants.
Manhattan traffic
crawls at an average of 6.2 miles an hour on midtown city streets.
The first Ford cars
had Dodge engines.
About a quarter of
the world still drives on the left, and the countries that do are mostly old
British colonies.
The Ilyushin-76TD
is the world's largest waterbomber. More
The pilot with the
most flying hours is American John Edward Long. From May 1933 to April 1977 he
flew 62 654 hours, achieving a total of more than 7 years airborne.
There are about a
billion bicycles in the world, twice as many as motorcars.
In 1955, the Ford
Thunderbird outsold the Chev Corvette 24 to one.
The fewest
aeroplane passengers killed in one year was 1 in 1993 and the most was 526 in
1985.
In 1893 J. Frank
and Charles E. Duryea produced the first successful gasoline-powered automobile
in the United States. They began production of their Duryea in 1896, the same
year Henry Ford started operations of his first successful car in Detroit.
The usual thermal
efficiency of reciprocal steam engine is 15%. That of steam turbine is over 40%.
Nuclear ships are
basically steamships and driven by steam turbines. The reactor just develops
heat to boil the water.
The world's oldest
surviving boat is a simple 3 metre (10 feet) long dugout dated to 7400 BC. It
was discovered in Pesse Holland in the Netherlands.
Rock drawings from
the Red Sea site of Wadi Hammamat, dated to around 4000 BC show that Egyptian
boats were made from papyrus and reeds.
The world's
earliest known plank-built ship, made from cedar and sycamore wood and dated to
2600 BC, was discovered next to the Great Pyramid in 1952.
The Egyptians
created the first organized navy in 2300 BC.
Oar-powered ships
were developed by the Sumerians in 3500 BC.
Sails were first
used by the Phoenicians around 2000 BC.
The first train reached a top speed of only 8 km/h (5 mph).