HISTORY OF
We live in an age when people can fly across the atlantic
Ocean in less than three hours. Straight roads link city to city across the
world. Yet 7,000 years ago, the only way that people could get from one place
to another was by walking. in around 5,000 bce, people began to use donkeys
and oxen as pack animals, instead of carrying their goods on their backs or
heads. Then, 1,500 years later, the first wheeled vehicles developed
in Mesopotamia. From around 1500 ce, deep-sea sailing ships
developed rapidly as europeans began to make great ocean voyages
to explore the rest of the world. During the 1700s, steam power
marked another milestone in transportation. Steam engines were
soon moving ships and trains faster than
anyone had imagined. During the
next century the first cars took
to the road and the first flying
ma chines took to the air.lanD Travel
land travel is the most common
kind of transportation. it all began with walking. Two thousand
years ago the romans built a network of superb roads over
which people traveled by foot or by horse-drawn cart. it was
only in the 1800s that steam power took
the place of horse power. Steam
locomotives provided cheap long-
distance travel for ordinary people.
in the early years of last century
engine-powered cars,
trucks, and buses
were developed.carS
cars are now the
most popular
form of private
transportation.
They were
invented toward
the end of the
19th century.Ocean liners (below) are used
as floating hotels.They take
passengers on cruises and
call at different resorts along
the way.Barge
a barge is
a sturdy boat
that transports
cargo, such as coal,
from place to place
along canals and rivers.Sea Travel
Floating logs led to the first watercraft, the
simple raft. in around 3500 bce, the Sumerians
and the egyptians made fishing boats out
of reeds from the riverbank. They also
built watertight wooden ships with oars
and a sail, for seagoing voyages. in the
19th century, steel replaced wood, and
steam engines gradually took over
from sails. Today’s engine-powered
ships can carry huge loads of cargo
at speeds never reached under sail.Railroads began to appear in the United States in
the 1820s. Trains could carry more freight and
people than any other kind of transportation.Junk
One of the world’s strongest sailing
ships, the junk has been used in
asia for thousands of years. Mainly
a trading vessel, it has large, highly
efficient sails made of linen
or matting.TRANSPORTATION
STagecOach
So called because they
stopped at stages on a route to change
horses, stagecoaches were the most popular
type of public land transportation during
the 17th and 18th centuries. coaching inns
sprung up along popular stagecoach routes.US_528_Transport_Hist_of_1.indd 528 27/01/16 2:39 pm