Technology and Inventions

Technology and Inventions — page 3
Before T h e r e W e r e Aut o m o b i Long ago most people had to walk wherever they wanted to go on land l es Later when large animals began to be domesticated some people rode camels horses donkeys oxen and even elephants Then came the discovery of wheels The people of Mesopotamia now in Iraq built wheeled carts nearly 5,000 years ago But so far the earliest cart that has actually been found is one made later than those in Mesopotamia by people in ancient Rome It was simply a flat board At first people themselves pulled carts Later they trained animals to do this As people used more and more carts they had to make roads on which the carts could travel easily In Europe and North America carts developed into great covered wagons and then into stagecoaches Pulled by four or six fast horses stagecoaches first bounced and rolled along the roads in the mid-1600s They became important public transportation during the 19th century It wasn’t until the steam engine was invented that a better means of transportation developed and that was the train Steam locomotives used steam pressure from boiling water to turn their wheels 6