POPSCI.COM•SPRING 2019 21A mile a
minute
26 miles/60 mph
Speed gains can be
slow; sailboats, for
one, top horses by
only a mile or so per
hour. But trains far
outpaced every other
mode of their era.
“The Antelope” sup-
posedly covered a
mile in a minute chug-
ging from Boston to
Lawrence, Mass.Around
the world
43K miles/5 mph
Ferdinand Magellan
started the first trip
around the globe
but died en route.
Juan Sebastián del
Cano took charge,
completing the
circumnavigation—
which tacked on
mileage to curve
around continents—
in 37 months.
The fi rst
fl ight
0.02 miles/7 mph
Our aerial debut
didn’t get us far:
The Wright Flyer
managed the pace
of a brisk jog for just
12 seconds. But the
trip set off a fero-
cious international
race. By the ’20s,
aviators were push-
ing into the 200 and
300 mph range.Speeding to
triple digits
0.62 miles/103 mph
It took decades for
jets to reach the
masses. Cars got
travelers off the
rails in the mean-
time. Our species
hit the century mark
when driver Louis
Rigolly screamed
down a beach in
Belgium in his signa-
ture French racer.Trans-Atlantic
triumph
1,890 miles/118 mph
British pilots John
Alcock and Arthur
Brown completed
the inaugural non-
stop trans-Atlantic
flight in a modified
WWI bomber plane.
They managed to
beat the earliest
rigid airship crossing
(picture a Zeppelin)
by a month.Spin through
space
25K miles/17K mph
When Russian
cosmonaut Yuri
Gagarin made
history by visit-
ing space, he
swiftly orbited the
planet—doing in
108 minutes what
took del Cano three
years by ship. Astro-
nauts on ISS now do
it 16 times a day.FASTERfFARTHERfby Charlie Wood / icons by Hubert Tereszkiewicz
SCATTEREDour biggest
mile markers
WIND, HORSE, AND PEOPLE POWER
enforced strict speed limits for
most of human history, but that
never stopped us from venturing.
By A.D. 400, Polynesians had ex-
plored the Pacifi c so persistently
that they’d reached and settled
Hawaii—thousands of miles
from points of origin in Asia. That
wanderlust soon had us itching
to pick up speed. Here are some
important moments in our jour-
ney to go farther—and do it faster.1522184819041919196119031522 1848 1903 1904 1919 1961