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

Technology and Inventions — page 4 — TRANSPORTATION DID YOU KNOW In the days of stagecoaches a 350 mile journey could take 36 hours and 24 changes of horses Today it would take less than six hours and one tank of gas The first passenger train service began in England in 1825 Soon trains were rushing hundreds of thousands people wherever iron tracks had been laid The first automobiles were not built until the late 1890s Some of the earliest were made in the United States and England though they were slow and broke down a lot They looked much like carts with fancy wheels What most of us recognize as a car wouldn’t come along for several more years S EA R C H LIG H T What were the first things people used to get around a their own feet b carts c donkeys LEARN MORE READ THESE ARTICLES AIRPLANES AUTOMOBILES SHIPS Answer a their own feet

Technology and Inventions — page 5 — How Henry F o r d M a d e the Ame r i c a n Car Henry Ford was born near Dearborn Michigan U S in July 1863 As a boy he loved to play with watches clocks and machines good experience for the person who would build the first affordable car Cars had already been built in Europe when Ford experimented EA R C H LIG S H T with his first vehicle in 1899 It had wheels like a bicycle’s and a gasoline-powered engine that made it move It was called a Quadricycle and had only two speeds and no reverse Within four years Ford had started the Ford Motor Company His ideas about making automobiles would change history Carmakers at the time used parts others had made and put True or false Henry Ford built the very first automobile them all together Ford’s company made each and every part that went into its cars What’s more the company made sure that each kind of part was exactly the same In 1908 Ford introduced the Model T This car worked well and was not costly It was a big success but the company couldn’t make them quickly enough to satisfy Henry Ford In 1913 he started a large factory that made use of his most important idea the assembly line Instead of having workers go from car to car the cars moved slowly down a line while workers stood in place adding parts to them Each worker added a different part until a whole car was put together This meant more autos could be built more quickly at a lower cost By 1918 half of all cars in the United States were Model Ts Ford’s company had become the largest automobile manufacturer in the world And Ford had revolutionized the process of manufacturing LEARN MORE READ THESE ARTICLES AIRPLANES OIL TRANSPORTATION D I D YO U K N O W is reported to have once said that his customers could get a Henry Ford ike as in any color they Model T i t s b l a c k long as l 8

Technology and Inventions — page 6 — AUTOMOBILES Henry Ford’s first car was the Quadricycle seen here with Ford driving It had only two forward speeds and could not back up Underwood Underwood Corbis Gottlieb Daimler a German gets credit for building the very first Answer FALSE Henry Ford built the first inexpensiveautomobile automobile 9

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